As we’re reaching the end of another semester, we all must look at the future. For some of us this will be on to the post-graduate world. For most, this will be a short break before heading back to the classroom. At the beginning of this semester, The Recorder staff had high hopes for itself. We had a good group of editors who were looking to make this more than just a paper. For all that we did as a small group and for as proud as we all are of our thirteen printed publications and our continual online coverage, we may have fallen short.

One of the most important aspects of any organizations is growth. This paper is going to be looking to grow to a new level next semester. We will be partnering with Professor Darren Sweeney’s news broadcast courses, where the students will be making video news packages for our website that will certainly beef up our multimedia coverage, something that we haven’t had the staff to dedicate towards. The idea of bringing The Recorder’s news to the campus radio station is also a possible goal. Journalism and the way news is broadcasted is changing, and we at The Recorder realize that.

Our staff is tired of begging and pleading for more staff writers. It’s hard for us all to figure out why the paper isn’t more popular than it is and the conversations have dominated our newsroom more than anything else this semester. It seems like a dream to be able to have access to a publication that will publish your work for thousands to read every week. Perhaps it is our romanticized view of the whole concept, but shouldn’t a position on a campus newspaper, no matter what the school, be heavily desired, instead of handed out like it’s nothing? We have absolute control over what goes in our newspaper, an ultimate freedom that few student newspapers share across the country. We need to know from you, the readers, the students of CCSU, what it is we can do better.

The editors next semester don’t want to have to write all of the stories. We don’t want to dominate the front page or the opinion page. It’s becoming the voice of a few and no one else’s. A newspaper should be a vast representation of the student body, but it’s hard to do that when you have five or six of the same people writing for your publication every week. If you get a chance, look at the mast head at the front of this paper. Beyond the editors, there’s not much there.

As a staff we admittedly haven’t done enough to reach out to the campus community and we realize that now. For some reason, it’s become quite clear that the average person doesn’t want to take the risk and have their work in print. We need to repair that image. There is no risk involved with bringing your stories to us and we will help you along the way if you need it. Ask any one of us and we’ll tell you the more writers we can pack into our office every week and into our Monday night meetings, the better.

Our last staff meeting of the semester was a sad sight. Beyond the editors there were three other people there. A total of six votes were cast to re-elect the editor-in-chief. Six students out of an entire university. Why even have the meetings? It’s just going to be us writing the articles anyways. There is no reason that it should be like this. We want students, staff members or not, to come to us with ideas, thoughts and problems. We want it to be our job to look deeper into what fuels their happiness or anger at this university.

It’s been our slogan for nearly a month now: We’re not just a newspaper anymore. We’re trying to succeed, but we can barely do that with the input we’re getting from the community. The future can be bright if we all step up and make this what it has the potential to be. You’re only in this position once in your life. Be excited about it.