Drake Political Review is celebrating its 10th birthday; take a look back at where it all began.

“Let’s Talk Politics!” Those words marked the start of Drake Political Review. Those words — first written in the letter from the editor by co-founders and then co-editors-in-chief Brianna Steirer and Susanna Hayward — have marked what DPR has stood for and have been stated in every issue since the first that was published in the fall of 2014. 

10 years of politics 

When DPR first released, Barack Obama was still president, Donald Trump hadn’t announced his run yet and Corona was only a beer.

DPR has covered local to national to international events, including on-the-ground coverage of protests and rallies addressing the most niche to the most controversial sides of politics. Establishing the success and size of the magazine we know today wasn’t always a smooth ride.

How it started

It was the summer of 2014, Brianna (Steirer) Zaiss — just done with her sophomore year at Drake University — was working an internship with then-Iowa senator Tom Harkin at his office in D.C. 

While in D.C. she met another intern from Duke University who created the Duke Political Review magazine. Zaiss was then introduced to the founders of Stanford, Harvard and Cornell political reviews and really took to the idea.

“I [told] them that they needed some flyover representation here in the middle of the country, they have the east and west coasts [covered.] I mentioned I wanted to start Drake Political Review,” Zaiss said. 

She was roommates at the time with a graphic design student named Susanna Hayward. When she pitched the idea for DPR, Hayward was instantly on board.

“We split the co-founder title. My side being more content, political insights and infrastructure of the publication. Her side was more design, printing and distribution,” Zaiss said. 

The rest of the process wasn’t as easy. Zaiss and Hayward pitched the idea to the Board of Student Communications (the independent governing body that oversees and funds all of Drake’s publications) who were anything but impressed and rejected their bid to become a student publication. 

As a last-ditch effort, they went to the Student Senate to try and get funding.

“We changed our pitch from becoming a publication to an organization. We agreed to host events and discussions and we did end up getting very minimal funding; only like a couple hundred [dollars,]” Zaiss said. 

They had a limited unpaid editorial staff and only a few different contributors who had heard of the magazine through word of mouth. 

“We didn’t have access to any of the BSC equipment, we had very little stuff of our own and definitely not the tools and programs you have today,” Zaiss said. “[Hayward] essentially hand drew the first issue, it was actually pretty impressive what she was able to do.”

In the end, after a semester of late nights and a plethora of hard work, they were able to complete and print around 150 copies of the first issue, thanks to a discount Hayward got from her job at the printing company. 

The first issue turned out to be more of a success than they thought it would.

“It kind of blew up. I think then the BSC was forced to recognize us as a publication and bring us on fully,” Zaiss said.

By the second issue of DPR the following spring, they were officially registered as a publication and began receiving more funding. Zaiss credits DPR with getting her her first job after graduating in 2016. 

Today Zaiss lives in the Twin Cities working for Hennepin County. Hayward currently works as the deputy art director for New York Magazine.

“I am so happy that DPR is still here 10 years later,” Zaiss said. “It makes all that initial work feel so worth it. I’m very pleased.”

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