We are gonna be honest with this editorial, we didn’t start until two hours before deadline. So hold on to your pants YSU and get ready for the last editorial by the 2014-2015 editorial staff — there will be pompous statements, insipid claims, sentimentality and burning bridges abound.
We are about to call this one in ladies and gentlemen.
I mean, frankly you have plenty of content that could drive a fantastic editorial on the front page between the gender gap and the diversity issues at YSU stories. But, between filling our paper with the self-satisfied rants of our departing members, the two aforementioned stories and it being pre-finals week, the editorial was the night’s sacrifice.
But the editorial that we can do is the best possible editorial; we are journalists after all, not academics. We live in the world of the real, not worship some god of nerds who grants us infinite knowledge about weird stuff — first bridge burned.
Some time in early August, The Jambar’s editorial staff sat down to discuss plans for the upcoming year. We decided to publish those plans in the form of a bold editorial — an audacious piece promising comprehensive coverage of all important campus happenings, expanded social media communications and salient multimedia content.
“A new age is dawning at The Jambar,” we wrote. “And we hope that we build a framework that stands and evolves even past our tenure. We welcome you all to the new Jambar.”
Did we achieve all these goals? No, of course not, don’t be ridiculous. But hey, Seinfeld’s on Hulu now and the new Avengers movie comes out Friday. So at least the world has got that going for it.
In any case, do you think those garbage people we left behind are gonna do a better job at running this trash barge? Good luck with that one — second bridge burned.
In all seriousness, when we started this year we made some lofty claims, but behind the intrepid arrogance, there was an honest intent hidden behind it.
We love this school. It may have some serious problems standing before it, problems we tried our damndest to cover well, but we can honestly say — as kind of, sort of insiders — that it is a place that cares.
Our administrators care; our faculty care; our staff care; our student government representatives care. Are we under any disillusion that other colleges are much different; that they don’t have the same inspired community working for improvement? No, of course not.
But one of the benefits — and this is not sarcasm — of a few years on the red is you can feel the passion and desire to move beyond the worst of critics and prove YSU is something more than what we are simply supposed to be.
And this was earnestly our desire as an editorial board — not to build our resume or pump up our egos, though those were side benefits — to shine light on successes and encourage engagement among the student body, while doing the best we could as student journalists.
Do we think we achieved this lofty goal? That isn’t for us to say. We are certain we tried. And this isn’t just a boast by the editorial board; this is directly a result of the hard work put in by the staff that will be taking the wheel next year — hell we hardly did anything at all.
As we move on with our lives, we have to admit we are a little bit jealous. The students here get to stick around for some good years ahead.
So, are we leaving this place just a little more bad-tempered, a little more cynical, a little more pompous? Sure, but in our little weirdo way, we are just a little bit happier. We hope all other YSU graduates can appreciate the feeling.
