You may be wondering why we didn’t choose to introduce ourselves in the first issue of the term. We meant to, but we got caught up in a lot of terrifying excitement over the past few weeks.
We headed home for spring break with our plans set in place. If you haven’t noticed, the paper is lighter. It’s 16 pages now, as opposed to the old 20, and we chose to cut it down in order to concentrate more on tightening content and to use our resources to improve our picture quality. In addition, we planned to become tweeting and Facebook-posting masterminds to increase our presence on the web.
We prepared to have a last week of peace before our first encounter with the never-ending editorial cycle.
Well, our plans did unfold, but not in the way we had anticipated. As soon as we got home, the Greeks decided to give us some interesting retrospective about our campus, the world decided to get involved in a debate on global warming stirred by last month’s visit from the infamous Lord Monckton, and lastly, the Dutchmen decided to head to the Frozen Four.
On our first day back for spring term, we got an email signed by a man named Steve from The New York Times Sports Desk. Steve inquired if the two of us wanted to write some articles on the recent success of Union hockey. It was a casual message from an editor at one of the greatest newspapers in the world. So, naturally, we freaked out and subsequently spent our first week back chasing down the swamped and busy hockey team to find quotes and information for our first ever Times article.
Three days later, the office phone rang. We looked at each other in confusion. The office phone? Who calls the Concordiensis’ office phone? The Wall Street Journal does, apparently. Matthew Futterman, ‘91 alumnus turned Wall Street Journal sports writer wanted us to track down an article he wrote a year before both of us were even born from our Internet archives that didn’t exactly exist in the ‘90s. Mr. Futterman wrote the article at a time when he didn’t believe that Union deserved a Division-I hockey team. He wanted to use his article from the ‘90s and compare it to the present success of the Union hockey program. Consequently, we sifted through every line of every Concordy that was written in 1990-91 in desperation. Sure enough, after our frantic search, Mr. Futterman successfully published “Dear Alma Mater, I’m Sorry” in The Wall Street Journal the very next day.
That same day, our first ever editorial cycle began. While we knew this job meant long hours spent in the Concordy office, we didn’t actually realize that this job meant LIVING in the Concordy office. We threw our hearts and souls into our first issue and, like everything else in life, it came out imperfect with errors that you probably didn’t even notice. But we noticed each and every one, and after having minor heart attacks over them, we realized that it’s okay. We now know that there is no better way to learn than from our mistakes.
Our first issue only made us more excited to take the paper to a whole new level. We want you to know that your feedback is so important to us. Please let us know what you think about the new layout and about how we’re doing. Contribution is equally important and we’d love for you to get involved!
If there’s one thing we’ve learned these past two weeks, it is to expect the unexpected. First the Times, then the Journal, and now it’s time for the Concordy. Bring it on, Union. We’re ready!
Tess Koman and
Gabriella Levine
Editors-in-Chief
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