Perspective
As this is our final publication of the semester, it felt only fitting to take the time to address the university community, our readers and our incredible team.
I’ve been involved in this organization since the first month of my freshman year and after three years —- and one term as editor-in-chief —- I’ve learned a lot about this place.
To the university community:
The University of New Haven isn’t that big and I’m not quite sure how such a diverse collection of people tracked it down. Nonetheless, the community built here is because of each of us. Somehow, six semesters of the Charger Bulletin can be summed up in just one sentence: this school has endless stories to tell. Those stories are ours and the pages we’d lay out each weekend, I quickly realized, could only shine light on such a small fragment of the lived experience that comes with being a Charger.
I think if any group of people understands the idea of sonder, it’s people at this university. We aren’t a school of strangers. I believe we have some of the most complex people making up our small campus and those complexities span the widest range imaginable. Our stories cannot be combined into eight pages of a college newspaper or quite frankly anything else with such strict limitations. You can’t put a word count on the lived experience of this school, or even more specifically each of you.
If you’ve ever picked up one of our papers or clicked over to one of our sites, thank you for listening to the stories told here. At the end of the day, journalism is only as important as its audience makes it and each of you who takes the time to read even one story is expanding the interconnectedness of this university.
To the graduating class:
For some of us, the University of New Haven was our great “leap” into the unknown. For others, maybe it wasn’t. Some of us were ready to take our deepest dive at 18-years-old and others are gearing up to take that dive after they step off this stage.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what drew you here. You got to West Haven and you gained your footing. The university is a great place to find yourself. The diverse community opens doors to resources for every aspect of the sense of self you need to find during your undergraduate career. There are outlets for gender and sexuality discovery, places to discuss your culture and the impact it has had on your lived experiences, groups and gatherings to explore your neurodivergence without shame.
You came here, likely to figure out who you are. I, for one, can say there’s no better place to do that than right here.
But now it’s time to take the leap of faith. You came here unsure of nearly everything around you and by now I’m positive the version of you that Charged In freshman year is essentially unrecognizable. Whatever you do next, do it bigger and better than anything you did here. Strive for the very most you can see for yourself, and no matter what, don’t sell yourself short.
To this year’s Charger Bulletin News Suite staff:
I have never seen more resilience, more innovation and more drive from any other staff this organization has housed in quite a long time.
This year was absolutely transitional and we’ve built the framework for the next generation of student journalists at this school. That is something each of you should be insurmountably proud of.
We’ve reimagined the presence of long-form journalism. Horseshoe Magazine has gained its wings this academic year. In a way we haven’t seen in the first century of this organization, this staff has not only expanded our content production, but made a name for the creative outlet developed just a few years ago.
Charger Bulletin News has streamed episodes live in real-time for the first time in years and the staff has pulled it off with seamlessness and professionalism that could only be achieved by the talent and crew of this year’s broadcast. We have faces on screen that hold some of the most powerful passion in their eyes and a crew in the control room that has worked tirelessly to produce a show ready to run on-air, a feat that must not be minimized.
Our current newspaper staff has worked through unimaginable roadblocks this term. Such a small collection of dedicated people has made it so our coverage has always turned around to fill those eight pages. You’ve gotten yourselves to events, in conversations and across the community at a volume we haven’t seen recently — you’ve captured the root of journalism (to take a leap into the community you cover) and you’ve run with it. We have placed countless voices in print, and beyond that, each of you has found your own voice and style in the work you produce.
To work with each of you was an incredible honor and those who will work with you at the start of your professional careers are even luckier.
And to the incoming staff:
To work in student journalism is a privilege. We have the power to share the voices of other students, to highlight both the triumphs of this community and the issues of shortcomings that deserve proper attention. We can tell stories other people would otherwise never hear and yet nevertheless deserve to be heard.
We act as a bridge between each pocket of this community and that is something you cannot exchange for any other experience during your undergraduate career.
Take risks, tell stories and never settle for “no.”
EIC signing off.
