George Mason University began operation under the name "University College of the University of Virginia" in the fall of 1957 in an 8-room former elementary school in Bailey's Crossroads. The original student body consisted of 17 young men and women from local high schools. The college was renamed "George Mason College" in late 1959 and moved to its first permanent campus at Fairfax during the fall of 1964. During this early period (1957-1964) enrollment never exceeded 250 students. Once at Fairfax, George Mason College's student body, while still small at 356, began to grow in terms of school spirit and student involvement. Students formed increasingly more and varied clubs,vigorously promoted and participated in Student Government elections, created leagues of intramural sports, and participated in many of the rites of college life, including publishing of newsletters, newspapers, yearbooks, and later, journals.

While no expamples of student publications prior to 1960 can be found in this collection, there were, most-likely, some mimeographed newsletters or other handouts created by students to inform, entertain, or educate their peers in the tiny college community. Student publications at George Mason during the 1960s included numerous small, short-run serial newsletters, the student newspaper The Gunston Ledger (renamed Broadside in 1969) [link to https://aspace.gmu.edu/resources/r0128], and the yearbook, Advocate [link to https://aspace.gmu.edu/resources/r0132]. By the 1970s and later a number of student published literary and culture-based journals appeared at Mason, including Phoebe and So to Speak. Today nearly all of the student publications are published and distributed by the umbrella group Student Media, which is part of Mason's Division of University Life.