As Co-Editors-In-Chief, we have worked hard to put out a newspaper that is appealing to the community, both in content and in presentation. For all the hard work, we have to admit that it has been a good deal of fun and that we know a lot more about WPI for the experience. Newspeak has provided a good excuse to not only gather information, but to meet some of the people that make WPI's community strong.
1995 was a good year for WPI: we closed West Street; had the chance to get to know John Lott Brown both as Interim President and as an alumnus of this school; and we now have the pleasure of having President Parrish to offer us his ideas. SocComm introduced the movie channel, renovation plans for Riley Hall have been approved for next summer, and Cynthia Tucker, the editorial page editor for the "Atlanta Constitution" came to WPI during Black History Month to speak on the need to eliminate the barriers between groups of people in America.
The Civil Engineering Department became the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department and plans for the Campus Center moved ahead. Professor Sacco finally got his ride on a space shuttle, WPI trading cards received national recognition and WPI was not listed among the top 50 engineering schools according to The U.S. News and World Report. SGA removed itself from the OCFC class III organizations, strengthening its position as a governing body, the following week they hosted an open meeting with President Parrish and James Burke gave an excellent talk on technology to a full Alden Hall.
WPI signed an agreement with the University of Puerto Rico which looks to benefit both institutions and the school is looking into improving its national image and maintaining financial stability. Newspeak lasted through its twenty-third year not too much worse for the wear, updating the "Welcome New Students" issue (which was a beautiful shade of orange) and returning the traditional April Fool's issue.
As editors, we realize that we could not have done anything without the help of our staff, who called us "Mom and Dad" from the start. Everyone was willing to give up time to get the paper out every week and we are confident that Dave will do a terrific job in the coming year.
Sure, we've had a few complaints that we haven't covered every possible thing going on at WPI, but we tried to bring you some of the important issues. (Shameless plug here) If we had more people on our staff, we could do an even better job, so think about dropping by the Newspeak office sometime next semester to see how you can get involved.
Over the past year we have come to realize what an important resource a student newspaper can be to the community. It should give the appearance of running smoothly, almost automatically, with the behind-the-scenes work becoming almost automatic. With a paper getting published every week, there is very little time to stop and take a breath and realize all that is going on. As soon as one issue gets out the door, we're already working on the next one, a turn-around time that very few organizations on campus can match.
In order to produce a paper that has news articles written from students' perspectives, students need to give input. As far as we can remember, we didn't turn down any articles which were properly submitted from any member of the student body about their group's events. Although there were things that we might have done differently if we had the chance, we have no regrets with regard to how we ran your newspaper.
That's an important thing to realize, Newspeak is your paper, it will always accept your comments, letters to the editor and articles. Even if you don't have the time to join our staff, constructive criticism is often welcome. When the paper starts up again after break, it will have a new editor and a slightly new look. Newspeak may be the oldest student organization on campus, but that doesn't keep us from changing and improving.
In closing, we'd like to thank all of the people who've met with us during the year and kept us abreast of the goings-on at WPI, without your help we'd have nothing to say. We would also like to mention that we hope that we succeeded in producing a quality newspaper and in keeping the Newspeak tradition strong. We're proud to have had this opportunity and we look forward to working with the paper over the next semester, maybe you would like to join us in this effort.
Give feedback: newspeak@wpi.wpi.edu