The 2022-23 editorial board term has ended and so has a year of achievements, overhauls and laughs. 
It feels like we just started and it was just a few months ago that we were logging onto Zoom for our first budget meeting. 
Our term started during the tail end of the pandemic, separated by Zoom meetings and social distancing. Many reporters and editors had never met another member of The Star. Despite that, it was a collective goal of the editorial board to begin in-person activities again.
We talked extensively at the beginning of our term about bringing a “newsroom culture” back to The University Star. Our e-board was in charge of leading the organization completely out of the pandemic, and we knew it had to start with us.
When all of us met for the first time at Camp Star last August, it was blatantly obvious that we were a roomful of extremely diverse personalities. We owe our Director Laura Krantz and Administrator Caitlin Mitchell immense thanks for putting together a three-day bonding and learning experience that brought us closer together. Looking back, it’s amazing how quickly we all bonded. Together we sailed through team-building exercises and shared laughs over the funny memories we were making.
Camp Star was our opportunity to get to know one another before embarking on a nine-month journey of spending 13 hours together every Monday to make a newspaper.
When we gathered for long production days, the guard of reservation we had at the beginning of the summer lowered little by little. We discovered each others’ personalities and how each of them fit into our team. Eventually, the newsroom became more than our workspace. It became a hangout spot where we got to know each other and made new friends as we welcomed new editors to our board. We were achieving our goal of creating a “newsroom culture.”
Awkward silences were filled by a certain news editor’s projecting laugh and voice and the number of inside jokes we had only grew. Our friendships made it outside the newsroom too. Many of us consider each other lifelong friends. The memories and bonds we made will last long after our graduating seniors leave Texas State.
We knew when it was time to work, however. The closeness of our friendships made doing our jobs as editors easier, especially with the new systems we put in place to streamline the production process and even out the workload on Mondays.
This editorial is printed on a 14-page newspaper. Days of planning, writing and communicating go into a paper like this. Previously, our design editor would sit at the design desk for 12+ hours designing all 14 pages, which is a grueling process. Staring at a screen for more than half the day is not something we recommend.
This year, we introduced a process that had each section editor designing their section’s pages; Marisa designed the Life and Arts pages, Dillon designed the Opinions pages, etc. This is how every paper since the end of the fall 2022 semester has been designed, but it took a lot of adjustment. Only a few of us were familiar with InDesign and we ran into problems with sending our paper to the printing press. One production day, we didn’t leave the newsroom until 3 a.m.
This past semester, we welcomed assistant editors to our team and taught them everything we learned so they would be well-equipped once they took over our positions. We’re proud of how quickly they have adapted to their new roles, which they officially stepped into on May 1.
Many of us stepped outside our comfort zones when we covered an election, or as the news editor Nichaela called it, the Super Bowl of news. We wrote briefs and monitored results for local elections. Much like other portions of the job that may have fallen through, we adapted together and divided up new work as needed so we could serve you, our audience.
This year, The Star won awards at the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association (TIPA) in Fort Worth, Texas, and at the National College Media Convention in Washington D.C.
We don’t do what we do to win awards, though. Our jobs are not easy. From week to week, we do all the work that goes into any weekly newspaper while still balancing homework, assignments, exams and projects.
From burying our newsroom fish, Electro to changing our editor-in-chief, Arthur Fairchild’s, hairstyle, the moments unique to our team are special memories that we won’t forget.
As we reflect on the last year, we realize that the obstacles we overcame only proved to us why The University Star is one of the best student media organizations in Texas. We leaned into change and realized the team effort it took to produce something we could be proud of every week. We’re proud of ourselves for how our hard work paid off.
Together, we have grown as young professionals and have aided in the growth and interpersonal development of The University Star.
At the end of our current configuration, we can say The University Star brought us more than joy and work to be proud of, but family.
Thank you for picking up our paper every Tuesday when it hit the racks. We grew, laughed and left our mark.