I love The Bona Venture. When the time comes for me to look back on my time at college, The BV will be the first thing I think of as defining my experience here.
I’ve spent countless hours in the basement of the RC, editing, re-editing and goofing off with my fellow BVers, who in the course of two years have gone from total strangers to some of my best friends.
The respect I have for The BV both as an institution and as a collective group of people makes me incredibly proud to be its editor-in-chief for this fall semester.
This year marks the BV’s 90th year as the university’s primary print news media source.
As a newspaper, it is and always has been our mission to provide members of the university community with strong and accurate reporting, and to hold the community at large, and even our own organization, accountable for the goings-on of St. Bonaventure.
This year, we intend to widen our sphere of influence at the school by allying ourselves with the school’s online newspaper, The Intrepid. Rather than working as competitors, we plan to work as equals, so that information can be disseminated quickly, measuredly and without any confusion to members of the university.
As we intend to increase our focus on digital media, the information that will appear in the print edition of the BV will provide fewer rehashed versions of past events. We hope instead to begin providing the school with more highly researched, long-form pieces and potentially more columns.
With any luck, the information we provide in print will be more relevant than long-past talks on campus.
As much as we are a record of current events, we are also the purveyors of the history that makes this beautiful old university unique. I hope to continue a long tradition of preserving the university’s history in my tenure here as editor-in-chief.
This semester, we’re adding several new positions. Rather than having one in-house photographer, we’re expanding a photo department. We’ve already added two new photographers. We also hope to add members to our news staff who will specifically work on social media, live tweeting events and building up our website.
Two of our editors are studying abroad this semester. Our future editor-in-chief, Julia Mericle, is currently in Italy, while our future news editor, Christina Root, will spend her semester in England. While we appreciate that they’ll be busy exploring Europe, we hope they may be able to write for us occasionally as foreign correspondents.
On a personal note, I am extremely grateful and proud of all the staff members who have stuck with The BV for years (including those who are abroad and those who have graduated).
I feel incredibly lucky to have been given a semester to spend leading a group of such talented, bright and incredibly kind people. I have absolute faith in their abilities as editors and writers of this paper.
I think I speak for all of us when I say that all we can hope to give you, our readers, is the best possible information regarding the day-to-day life of our university.
Thank you for allowing us to be part of St. Bonaventure’s voice.
mcelfrdh14@bonaventure.edu
