Samantha Henig, a sociology major in the College of Arts and Sciences with a concentration in inequality, has become a master at filling gaps. Freshman year, when she and her high school friend Katie Jentleson '06 found the gulf between journalistic and literary publications at Cornell too wide, they co-founded Kitsch, a magazine specializing in longer feature stories.

Once confined to dailies or literary fare, Cornell writers now have a topical, stylish, ironic medium in which to flex their journalistic muscles.

Jason Koski/University Photography

Samantha Henig co-founded StudPubs, which has forged a strong community and social network for student publications on campus.

Then, sophomore year, Henig and Jentleson felt the university's myriad publishing organizations lacked cohesion, so they founded StudPubs, an organization that seeks to unite all the student-run publications at Cornell into a larger community.

"We started StudPubs because there wasn't really community among the publications. Before StudPubs, we didn't really acknowledge each other at all even though we knew each other. Then after StudPubs, we would say things like 'Hey, good issue,' or 'Hey, where do you go for printing?'" says Henig.

As a collective group, StudPubs forges a strong community and social network, as well as a united front when seeking university support. Kitsch's layout efforts had previously transpired late at night in the English department's Epoch office, for example, where Henig and Jentleson would let themselves in after hours. Lacking a central workspace for student publications, the group met with Dean of Students Kent Hubbell to establish a computer lab in Willard Straight Hall for student publications. With the help of some financial support from Vice President for University Communications Tommy Bruce, StudPubs also has facilitated a speaker series to address such themes as Internet blogging and newspaper censorship.

When speaking of StudPubs, Henig says with a smile, "The administration has been so responsive. They really want to help us, and that's been a really nice experience that's made us have a lot of love for Cornell."

That love may have started with her parents, Cornell Class of 1973 alumni Jeff Henig, professor of political science and education at Columbia University, and Robin Marantz Henig, a freelance science journalist and author, who brought Samantha to Cornell one summer. "I came here for camp as a kid and grew up picturing Cornell as the definition of what college looks like," she says.

Samantha Henig, who recently wrote about the stabbing incident on campus for Kitsch and helped report on it for The New York Times, also has been a contributing writer for the Cornell Daily Sun this past year. And she recently collaborated with professor of government Mary Katzenstein as a teaching assistant at Auburn prison. "The whole prison system is something that I hadn't known that much about before Mary Katzenstein's really great class," says Henig.

She also worked at Louis Gossett Jr. Residential Center in Lansing, N.Y., last semester, tutoring boys in reading, grammar and GED (high school diploma) prep, and she coached soccer for two years with the Ithaca Youth Bureau.

This summer she begins an internship with the Chronicle of Higher Education in Washington, D.C., and plans to move to Boston in the fall to pursue journalism.

Graduate student Jackie Reitzes is a writer intern at the Cornell News Service.