Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson stopped by Northern Kentucky University Jan. 18 to celebrate “The Collegiate Readership Program” that gives students free copies of USA Today and the New York Times.

Formulated by the Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement, its creators hope to increase regional stewardship at NKU.

NKU joins other schools, such as Miami University Oxford, Thomas More College and Xavier University who are taking part in this four-week pilot program.

Ratonna Harr from USA Today said educators created the program to get students more civically involved. They felt newspapers could do that.

They are having both USA Today and the New York Times available to students for four weeks. It started on Jan. 22. with the newspapers being distributed in Norse Commons, W. Frank Steely Library, Honors House, Landrum, Founder’s Hall and the University Center.

“Civic engagement is the cornerstone of education,” Jan Hillard, associate provost for regional stewardship said to a group of students and administrators in the University Center Ballroom.

“Service learning, from what I’ve seen, is real life experiences