As a brief interruption to Jiya’s usual updates on the inner workings of the paper and fancy Editor-in-Chief (EIC) responsibilities, I’m stepping in this week to sidebar. This issue is T-7 days away from the first Alumni Gala—RSVP today—and articles aren’t going to RFL themselves.
In the very first editorial with The Stute we’ve come to know, Jiya chose to highlight the collection of new, bright-eyed e-board members and every positions’ history with the paper — a choice I always thought was telling of her leadership. She’s alluded to me as her right-hand woman. So I’ll introduce myself as Managing Editor, the inverse image of EIC. While I’ve been getting comfortable in the corner of editing, onboarding, article assignments, Slack deadline reminders, and club meeting planning that all seem to happen simultaneously, I find myself thinking back to my own mental versions of The Stute to catalog the short span of not only a term, but undergrad.
I’m a science-ish journalism major, and so I was drawn to the physical issue of the paper from Admitted Students Weekend, very much geeking out over the idea of a printed byline and the stacks sitting on the rack. While I was not a Stute Weekend veteran, I started getting involved a little distant from the immediate Stute community at the time, being a freshman opinion columnist who virtually submitted my first Book of the Week column application into the ether. GBM article assignments were foreign and The Stute office was an intimidating realm of upperclassmen too busy making a paper to be bothered by basic questions (my own projection, and I’m beginning to appreciate the ironic nature of passing the torch). While this isn’t a very technical glimpse into the workings of the paper as it stands, obviously a well-oiled machine running 25/8, it’s a reflection into everything gained from stepping into roles that challenge me alongside supportive peers who were ready to pivot.
Here’s my favorite day of the week as Managing Editor: Every Tuesday, Jiya and I sit in the Stute office and talk about news articles that will be pitched to a room of students who want to write, willingly participate in the PTA-esque group activity at 9 p.m., and contribute to the growing Stute community. I get so much satisfaction from thinking that we can give back to our writers with free sweet treats or Karma Kafe catering, with the help of Fiona, our Business Manager. We review articles from a news briefing doc spun up from Josephine, our very own Secretary, and Slack messages from the membership — a process that represents current e-board intentions to open up operations to anyone and everyone with ideas. We talk about a Stute dedicated to other students and e-boards through engagement, succession, and longevity alongside the weekly to-dos.
From a bird’s-eye-view of a Managing Editor that gets to work alongside my EIC, I often get deja vu. The self-sufficient workstream that writers become familiar with is a rewarding landscape once the dust settles from viewing the week through priorities and timeslots. While Jiya and I sometimes find ourselves counting down the issues we have left as an e-board, an alumni recently warned us that the experience will be over as quickly as it began. Now I’m trying not to blink. Co-heading an org as old as us, I know that there have been countless versions of The Stute before, and there will be many more after, as my role and the club itself are nothing more than the unique collection of students that dedicate their Tuesdays to begin the cycle all over again.
