A new year means new leadership for The Dickinsonian. We are excited to take over the newspaper as Co-Editors-in-Chief, and to unroll a series of changes to improve The Dickinsonian’s organization, legitimacy and visibility on campus.

We would not be able to put out a paper every week if it were not for our dedicated staff of editors, photographers, and writers. We were delighted to host more than 20 prospective writers for our first informational meeting this week, but we know that we are responsible for keeping our staff fulfilled and energized – after all, that is what keeps them productive. Our primary goal this year is to make the newspaper a place where students interested in campus media can meet one another and find a community of like-minded individuals. To that end, we are planning a series of events – dinners, workshops, and an end-of-semester staff party – to make the newspaper more sociable and inviting to students.

We are also dedicated to giving our staff the training and expertise they need to produce quality journalism. With the help of our faculty advisor, we are planning the first-ever News Writing Training Workshop. This optional event will instruct our writers in the basics of reporting, and our goal is to increase the quality and integrity of our content.  The student paper is a space to practice journalism, and mistakes are an inevitable part of learning any new skillset. Even so, we are just as accountable to our readers as we are to our writers, and we do not want amateurship to be the enemy of accuracy.

Finally, we are hoping to be more visible to you, our reader. A campus newspaper should be a forum for debate and inquiry among all members of the school community. We invite submissions and tips from all corners of campus, but we are also going to work to make sure that you do not forget about us. Thanks to new initiatives coming out from Senate this semester, The Dickinsonian hopes to collaborate with other student groups to co-sponsor public events and discussion forums. The media is as much of a public institution as the body politic, and it is time that The Dickinsonian assume that position on campus.

We have talked a lot about ourselves lately, but we do not want our students to forget that this is primarily their paper. If you have ideas, we want to give you the equipment and space to put them into action. We are looking forward to a year of collaboration and we hope that you will be part of that vision.