Out with the old, in with the news

As I have found myself on many other Wednesday evenings this semester, I am sitting at my desk, frustrated at the words in my head for taking so long to tell my fingertips which keys they should press. Except this time is different. Knowing that these are the last words I will publish this semester, I feel a sense of finality. While the Defender is about to be put to rest for the summer, I can’t help but look at how far it has come from a year ago.

“You can change everything and anything,” our advisors told us on the first day of class in the fall semester. And we did. The paper got a facelift, and so did its online counterpart. From debating fonts to even discussing a change of name, nothing was off-limits.

Story-wise, we worked hard to fill the pages with fresh content, and to update our online edition with new stories once a week. We reported the response of St. Michael’s to a student asking for clarification of credits with her Planned Parenthood internship. We looked behind the scenes of various fine arts students who create with their hands and their minds. We tackled the changes in the housing structure, and we got up-close and personal with the details of the shooting that happened right across the street.

But being an editor means more than writing a story, filming a video, or designing a page. It is our job to not only recognize what is happening around us — on our campus, in our community — but to examine it. “Why does this story matter?” is a question we are constantly pressed to answer, and replies do not come easily. We not only are set as watchdogs representing the voice of St. Michael’s, we are peering behind the curtains of what makes up the canvas of our institution.

As our eyes are trained upon the happenings of our community, it is impossible not to notice how the Defender is not the only part of our campus that was altered this year. At this time last year, Bergeron was the home of MJD majors, not the renovated Wellness Center. Students were eagerly looking forward to moving up to North Campus and were unworried about which dorm would be most cost effective for them. Neuroscience joined the list of majors, and a Peace Corps Prep program formed. And as the year draws to a close, we begin to say farewell to the North Campus so many of us called home.

Changes are constantly swirling around our campus, but often we let them happen without questioning why they are taking place, or even stopping to note the difference. But we should all ask ourselves, “Why does this matter? What do these changes mean for me, for us, for St. Michael’s?” We must examine our own surroundings vigilantly, otherwise, we will lose sight of where we are and how far we’ve come from where we started.

When we return to St. Michael’s next year, we may not remember many of the changes our campus has seen. There will be new stories for the Defender to report on. First year students will be unaware that St. Michael’s ever looked different than how they find it. But we carry those memories with us, because they are what make our experience so unique.

#editorial