Mr. Peabody and Sherman had their Wayback Machine. Emmett Brown had a DeLorean with a flux capacitor. Captain Kirk steered a starship into the sun.
It all goes to show that time travel isn’t easy, even in the world of fiction. Fortunately, one doesn’t have to physically travel to the past to get a little history. Nowadays all it takes is the Internet.
A look at the top 10 stories posted in Around the O in 2015 starts with news of the UO’s effort to vaccinate students against meningococcal disease. The story “Mass vaccination clinics begin March 2; additional clinics set” show both the campus concern for student health and the value of the university’s news website, where the story got almost 5,200 page views.
But the interest in students was broad. A story from September on the incoming freshman class, “Enrollment numbers show a more diverse, academically prepared class,” landed in second place on the list, drawing 4,406 page views.
Another number, the “Big One,” also captured a lot of eyes. In the wake of a compelling story on the dangers of a major West Coast earthquake in The New Yorker, Around the O readers were quick to click on “UO to host public earthquake forum to discuss ‘The Really Big One,’” giving it 3,810 page views.
A seminal moment in the UO’s recent history also was among the most-viewed stories. More than 3,300 readers clicked in when the university announced the name of its 18th president in the story “Michael Schill of the University of Chicago to be new UO president.”
Popular technology also drew viewers. The option for students to take their own picture for student identification cards made a popular story, “UO card office now accepting selfies for Duck IDs,” which collected 3,291 page views.
And people were almost as interested in the departing class as they were the incoming one. “One last look at the Class of 2015,” an homage to the year’s alumni-to-be, came in at just under 3,000 page views.
Research stories also had a big audience, led by “Archaeologists return to Oregon’s Fort Rock Cave,” highlighting the UO’s prominent role in the search for the first humans in the Americas. The story made the top 10 with 2,850 views.
What else caught the interest of campus viewers? Rankings, for one. The story “University of Oregon a top 'Best Buy' according to Fiske Guide” generated 2,670 page views, followed by “US News graduate rankings for 2016 include UO programs” with 2,500.
But the top 10 list ends on a sad note. With 2,359 views, “UO President Emeritus Dave Frohnmayer dies at age 74” broke the news of the passing of one of the university’s longest-serving and most admired presidents.
The Internet can play some tricks with time, though. Several stories generated a lot of attention in 2015 even though they were posted well before the year began.
Topping that category was “Mariota gets the award he came back for: A college degree,” which was posted Dec. 12, 2014, but still had more than 25,500 page views in 2015. The story told of the decision by record-setting Duck quarterback Marcus Mariota to return to the UO for another year — and a bachelor’s degree — even though he could have declared for the NFL draft.
A story that blended football and history, “UO’s buckeye tree commemorated 55 years after the fact,” had more than 4,800 views this year but was first posted in October 2013. However, a link to the story was included in a new story on the UO-Ohio State rivalry posted in the run-up to the college national championship football game.
Internet time travel gave a boost to another story, “Researcher: Religion influences behavior — both good and bad,” that described the work of UO psychology professor Azim Shariff. First posted in July 2013, the story was still generating clicks in 2015 with more than 3,600 page views among people interested in Shariff’s research on the connection between religion and behavior.
But for better or for worse, the Internet time machine doesn’t know what the top stories of 2016 will be. See you next year.
—By Greg Bolt, Public Affairs Communications