The current office for The Stute, in the Student Center, is the third office I’ve been in as a member of The Stute, and it won’t be the last. The long-term home of The Stute will be in the University Center, and soon we’ll be moving there, in the same area of campus where the original Jacobus office was. Hopefully, it will have less bugs than Jacobus.
Our current office basically has two sides: one has all our computers and the other is an open workspace. But our computers haven’t been working since the 2019 cyberattack, and after trying to get them working this semester, it seems like it’s not a beneficial use of our time to continue. We’re now trying to make our laptops work for us instead of against us, especially when it takes special software and many hours of sitting at our laptops to get the paper out. As a result, half our office is basically unusable, and with a growing staff it’s been tough to figure out how to make our workspace the best it can be.
After the cyberattack came the start of the pandemic, which really disrupted our club even more than any of us think. So much of how our staff learns comes from observing others, in-person conversations while we’re all together instead of direct messages, and problem solving things in a group. As a newspaper, our online only publication during the pandemic caused us to lose our sense of urgency with getting the paper out. We’ve had to rebuild that this semester, with everyone learning or relearning that things need to move at a faster pace, with more weight put on each decision and getting things done. I feel that we are getting to where we need to be, but it’s still a struggle.
On top of all this, our deadline this semester for submitting files to our publisher was pushed up 7 hours, from midnight to 5 p.m. on Thursdays, which doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s completely wrecked our organization. I don’t think I’m being dramatic here: a major part of The Stute’s culture is Thursday production. It used to be that the office is open from 11 a.m. until 1 a.m. during which we have pizza, staff members come and go when they can to help out, we play music, we gossip, we stress about getting the paper out, and the e-board is together until late at night. And while those long Thursdays were tough, I’m devastated that it seems we’ve completely lost them. While we’ve tried to replicate them to be on Tuesday nights, it’s not the same if the paper isn’t due at midnight.
Serving as Editor-in-Chief for the time I have has been extremely rewarding, as I’m sure I’ll write more about next semester as I prepare to hand over the torch. But there will always be a sense of disappointment that it wasn’t what I observed it was going to be through watching past Editors in “normal” times.
I’m trying my best to rebuild what I feel like we’ve lost over the past two years. I think it all comes down to stability: things feel rocky, schedules we’ve been used to have been changed, our office isn’t working for us, and so on. I look to the University Center, hopefully the last big office transition in a while, as a time to get stable again. Maybe the past two years have been just a giant transition phase. Maybe things needed to get tough in order to get easier later. Maybe we are thriving, and I’m a pessimist. Either way, I think the toughest part is behind us, and slowly but surely we’re moving back up.
The Stute Editorial is an Opinion column written by the current Editor in Chief of The Stute to address and explain editorial decision making, discuss news and media issues, and develop a sense of trust and transparency between readers and members of The Stute.
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