The Agromeck yearbook is facing some major changes next year from its leadership to possibly even its delivery date.

Brandon Wright, last year’s editor in chief of the award-winning book, who also won the position for this year, resigned last week.

Wright, a senior in accounting, took over the position in November when previous editor Cynthia Rouf, resigned.

After serving as editor until the completion of last year’s book, Wright said he decided to resign as editor because he wanted to focus on schoolwork his senior year and graduate on time.

“Students need to realize that grades come first and we’re here for an education,” Wright said. “This is secondary.”

Wright said he felt like he got more than what he bargained for in a year, but said that he helped produce a quality book, and though he didn’t start it, he feels like the book is his and his staff’s.

“[The reason I quit] was more [about] the atmosphere of the book and how all year long, we fought battles because of having the editor resign at the time the editor resigned and everything snowballed,” he said.

According to Wright, he is not worried that his resignation at this point will hinder this year’s book because he said it is in good hands, with his managing editor Mary Beth Hamrick stepping up for the role as editor and last year’s sports editor, John Cooper Elias, stepping up as managing editor, which the Student Media Board still has to approve.

“Both of them are highly capable of doing their jobs and have learned a lot this year and I’ll still be around to help them plan, recruit and probably design and write some,” he said.

Wright said with the decline in yearbook sales, the staff is going to try to revamp it for next year.

“It’s essentially dying,” he said. “If there’s not an increase in support from students, the faculty and the University, there probably won’t be an Agromeck after another year because you can’t keep something alive that the University doesn’t support.”

Wright said students do not respond to the classical yearbook anymore.

According to Bradley Wilson, student media advisor who has served as the advisor for three years, said he has seen a pretty steady decline with the book selling 750 three years ago, 300 two years ago and 200 last year.

Wilson attributes this decline to the fact that this generation of college students is the “ADD generation.” “They’re very into now, and they’re into now for 5 seconds, not even an hour,” Wilson said. “So, they’re into listening to their iPods and instant messaging, while checking their email and watching TV at the same time.”

Elias, who also had previous experience working in a high school yearbook in addition to the Agromeck, agreed.

“In high school, yearbooks are so popular because it’s the whole thing about getting the book, getting all your friends to sign it,” he said. “It’s a smaller setting too, so people know everyone in the book at least everyone in their grade.”

He said in college, it is harder to market the book, especially since many students don’t decide to buy it until senior year.

“It really comes down to the fact that people weren’t interested in what they think is a yearbook,” he said.

The book, Elias said, doesn’t have all 30,000 students in it and the staff can’t cover every single event, so when they start to explain their purpose to people, they don’t understand it.

According to Elias, for this reason, the staff is considering changing the book to a “year in review” type book.

He said it used to be more of a historical record, but people don’t see the importance in that anymore.

“If we want the Agromeck to survive and keep going as the oldest publication at N.C. State, we have to adapt to what the students want,” he said. “Everything can change and everything probably will change.”

Elias said changes can include shifts in design, more feature-based writing and changing from a fall delivery of the next year to a spring delivery of that same year, while adding a supplement for those who buy the book that covers the events during the spring.

“We used to devote coverage in the book to be fair by giving equal coverage to all groups,” he said. “Unfortunately, that’s not, again, what students want. Students want to remember when we beat Carolina, the last second touchdown pass against Boston College, the big campus news events.”

According to Wilson, the book sustains itself through student fees, sales and advertisements and is trying to decrease its dependency on student fees.

“If the book’s not self-supporting, should it even exist? That’s a valid question,” he said.

In 2001, Wilson said the Agromeck was behind and was working on publishing three editions, which went out in 2003. He said this fallback is a reason some people on campus don’t even know a book exists. It’s not the lack of quality or coverage that’s lacking, he said.