I had never taken journalism in high school. I had no desire to explore journalistic writing or learn what an “inverted pyramid” is. Naturally, the first thing I did at Guilford College was decide to tackle all of these things. I joined The Guilfordian my first semester as a staff writer. Having not realized Guilford even had a journalism class, I went in with even less knowledge than most of the other writers. It goes without saying that my first few articles were pretty horrendous.

In the past three years, I’ve not only improved my writing, but I’ve also learned a lot about journalistic photography, layout and how to run a newspaper. I’ve been everywhere from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to Austin, Texas, to learn about journalistic style and how to write about social justice. I’ve been a writer, a section editor and a managing editor.

Eighteen-year-old me never thought I would be able to run the organization, but I’ve grown to care a lot about the newspaper beyond the writing, although writing for the paper is still one of my favorite things to do. There are so many other ways to tell a story in the newspaper, and I hope to learn about as many as I can.

One of my goals for the next year is continuing to focus on social justice, which I hope to do by continuing to build relationships to other departments on campus and meeting with Understanding Racism Workshop facilitators.

I also hope to be able to build connections within the organization and outside, whether that means connecting the video department to the writers or creating a connection between The Guilfordian and WQFS.

In the next year, I want to cover the elections. I want to make an awesome Goofordian edition for April Fools’ and create an amazing Serendipity spread. Mostly, I want to run the organization to the best of my ability. I want to encourage the community to reach out and interact with our organization. I want to create an open and inclusive environment to interact with the community.

I will be speaking with all of you very soon.