I would like to start with a grand “Hello!” to all of the readers of The Lawrentian. My name is Andrew Brown. I am a junior English and linguistics major, and I am the newest Editor-in-Chief. I am honored to hold this position for the next year and eager to share the journey with an amazing editorial board, the clever and diligent staff of writers, photographers and illustrators and the readership of our student newspaper.
Some of the very first words that Lawrence students read in their college careers come from Natasha Trethewey’s book “Native Guard,” a favorite Freshman Studies work that begins with a poem titled “Theories of Time and Space.” At the very end of the poem, she writes, “On the dock / where you board the boat for Ship Island, / someone will take your picture: / the photograph—who you were— / will be waiting when you return.”
As the new Editorial Board begins the next chapter of The Lawrentian, I ask our campus and community to take a snapshot of where we are now. We just began Spring Term of 2019. The heavy snow and dreary skies of winter are melting away, making room for flourishing flora and energy for students to learn, create, impact and innovate. Some are flocking to theaters to see Jordan Peele’s “Us,” while others are rocking out in their dorm rooms to Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next.” We are in the third year of Trump’s presidency and many are fatigued from the dizzying news cycle and constant evaluation of our principles as a campus and as a country.
My vision for The Lawrentian is to interrupt this dizziness and to bring this evaluation to the forefront of the dialogue we have with our community. The goal of this paper has always been a source of fair, honest and reliable reporting that represents our student body. However, The Lawrentian has never been perfect and does not pretend to be. We are going to make mistakes, but we will constantly be working towards eliminating the frequency of these errors, and ensuring that our errors are not regressive or offensive. We will report on all types of campus events and world events, especially ones that will hardly find any space in more mainstream media. We will be celebrating some of the more positive sides to living in our modern age and remaining fully cognizant in times where all hope seems to be lost.
Over the next three terms, The Lawrentian will be engaging with the community more than it ever has. I cannot wait to meet all of you at events that we plan on hosting, panels that we will organize and dialogues that we will participate in beyond the pages of our paper. I encourage you to meet us at these places, write to us when you want your voices or events to be heard and seen and keep us in check when we publish things that do not reflect our campus values. This way, our community will be stronger and healthier, and we can be truly proud of this student paper that has been in print across several centuries.
Thank you for supporting our paper across those centuries and for reading whenever you have the chance. A tremendous amount of work goes into putting together this weekly paper, from the conception of article ideas to the final print. I would also like to extend a special thank you to the faculty and staff at Lawrence University who impact all of our lives on a daily basis. Without the amazing dedication of our dining and custodial services, as well as the efforts of those who put together our financial aid packages and help us pursue careers after Lawrence, our institution would not function at all. Finally, I would like to congratulate my fellow students for all of their successes they have achieved so far. I hope that the team at The Lawrentian and I will not let you down. Thank you!