The Davidsonian’s new perspective

Dear Readers,

The Davidsonian is pleased to announce a number of exciting changes and new aspects of our paper that we think will make it more interesting and pertinent to our wide range of weekly readers, which includes students, faculty, staff, friends of the College, parents, and alumni.

Our most significant goal this year is to offer content that is informative, prolific and "Davidson-centric." We don't just want to preview events or report on those that have already occurred on campus. Instead, we will focus on publishing articles with depth, reporting on topics with which students may not be familiar. Incorporating investigative articles, in particular, will be a stimulating new aspect of our content each week. In this issue we already have one example of the type of topics we hope to discuss in more depth. The article about Davidson's meal plan options is only an introduction to a piece we will run in the spring that will include thorough research and comparisons to other colleges across the country regarding the meal plan's effectiveness and value to students. If you have ideas for issues you want to investigate on campus or would like to read about, please don't hesitate to let us know.

Another exciting addition to the paper is the new Davidsonian.com, which will be officially launched in several weeks. The website will have a more streamlined design, making it more user-friendly and providing a number of features that directly benefit the Davidson population. Though some articles will only be published in our print edition, other articles will have extra features that are available on the website. We hope to maximize the benefit a student newspaper has the potential to provide to a small community like Davidson, including connecting students to what happens on campus through video, podcasts of lectures that occur on campus, and photo galleries. Finally, local guides for students that will help them navigate the area will be available in January 2012.

This year The Davidsonian has the largest editorial and business staff we've had in years, and we are implementing a training program wherein we critique our issues each week as a staff after they have been printed. You can help us with this process by sending any suggestions or feedback about our issues each week to davidsonian@davidson.edu. We look forward to becoming your most important source of news, insightful and investigative articles, and commentary on campus.