members that while Hovde had the authority to fire Smoot, the university did not follow due process. Smoot was allowed to remain as editor-in-chief. More important in the long term, the commission recommended that the Exponent'' become a not-for-profit corporation headed by a publishing board, the Purdue Student Publishing Foundation. Its rent-free use that had been in place since 1933 of windowless offices in the basement (Room B-50) of the Purdue Memorial Union would end in 1969 and the organization paid rent to the University until moving out in May 1989. In 1975, at the urging of then Purdue President Arthur Hansen, the Exponent became free distribution with 10,000 copies distributed on campus. Recent operations The newspaper struggled through the first several years of organization, partly because it was capitalized only by operating revenues and partly because it was being forced to rent space from the university and to purchase printing equipment that had already been paid for. It went through a period of alternately making and losing money, though student staff members were all volunteers at that time. A critical point came in 1975 when the newspaper went to free campus-wide circulation, expanding market coverage and gaining dramatic advertising increases. By 1988, revenues had grown substantially and the newspaper began construction on a facility that it occupies, but no longer owns, at 460 Northwestern Ave., West Lafayette. The newspaper today distributes 9,000 copies twice-weekly during the school year and 5,000 during the summer. Revenues are nearly $1 million per year. The Exponent is only one of two college newspapers that own and operate their own printing press. The current news adviser is Virginia Black, an award-winning journalist and editor from the South Bend Tribune. Notable alumni Ken Armstrong, investigative reporter, book author, reporter, ProPublica, Earl Butz, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. Brandt Hershman, attorney, former Majority Floor Leader, Indiana State Senate (retiring in 2018), former writer for President George H.W. Bush. Rick Karr, journalist and educator who reports primarily on media and technology's impact on culture. Michael King, digital executive producer and Internet reporter, WXIA-TV, Atlanta Mark O'Hare, cartoonist Larry Persily, Anchorage Daily News editorial page editor; former publisher The Wrangell Sentinel, nature gas pipeline coordinator for Alaska for President Obama administration Bob Peterson, (cartoonist at Exponent 1985 - 1987) animator, screenwriter, director, voice actor, Pixar Orville Redenbacher, food scientist Ginger Thompson, senior reporter, ProPublica; former bureau chief, The