Spring Break
I'm listening, all summer long
By: Jason Staggs
Issue date: 6/1/09 Section: Opinion
My fellow Aggies:
Howdy! My name is Jason Staggs, and I am a senior pre-law history major from Evadale, Texas. But, more importantly, I am the loudest, proudest member of the Fightin' Texas Aggie Class of 2010. A-Whoop! This summer, I will have the pleasure and responsibility of serving the student body as Voices editor at The Battalion.
In my application and interview for this job, I suggested that the name of this page be changed back to opinion, since that is the trade we are in, and this business about voices wasn't fooling anyone.
I will talk more about the opinion side of things later, but for now I think it is important to share what I have come to realize since being hired: this paper is the voice of the student body. The reason we exist is to serve students by providing news and commentary on issues and topics important to you, whoever you are, wherever you are from, whatever you think about whatever we are writing about.
Even before being hired, I sensed that students' voices cannot be spoken most accurately by regular, paid columnists. Columnists' willingness to commit to filling at least one slot on a blank page every week is essential to the functioning of this page, of course, and the time they commit to researching and developing their arguments is and always will be laudable.
Their contributions to this paper inform and excite thousands of you every week, but something even more…I hesitate to say 'democratic'…is needed, if we are to go on claiming to be the 'voices' page.
That is why my most intensely worked-upon goal over the course of this summer is going to be to encourage students to submit guest columns and mail call. If some issue strikes you as urgent and in dire need of a voice, be that voice. You don't have to be in the paid opinion stable to have your voice heard. The way for this page to be more representative of Aggieland's students is by playing host to more opinions from more people.
Over the course of the past semester, my predecessor Kenny Ryan, co-worker Kat Drinkwater and I strove to place as many student voices on the page as we responsibly could, and I intend to build on what we learned and make it into something even better.
Howdy! My name is Jason Staggs, and I am a senior pre-law history major from Evadale, Texas. But, more importantly, I am the loudest, proudest member of the Fightin' Texas Aggie Class of 2010. A-Whoop! This summer, I will have the pleasure and responsibility of serving the student body as Voices editor at The Battalion.
In my application and interview for this job, I suggested that the name of this page be changed back to opinion, since that is the trade we are in, and this business about voices wasn't fooling anyone.
I will talk more about the opinion side of things later, but for now I think it is important to share what I have come to realize since being hired: this paper is the voice of the student body. The reason we exist is to serve students by providing news and commentary on issues and topics important to you, whoever you are, wherever you are from, whatever you think about whatever we are writing about.
Even before being hired, I sensed that students' voices cannot be spoken most accurately by regular, paid columnists. Columnists' willingness to commit to filling at least one slot on a blank page every week is essential to the functioning of this page, of course, and the time they commit to researching and developing their arguments is and always will be laudable.
Their contributions to this paper inform and excite thousands of you every week, but something even more…I hesitate to say 'democratic'…is needed, if we are to go on claiming to be the 'voices' page.
That is why my most intensely worked-upon goal over the course of this summer is going to be to encourage students to submit guest columns and mail call. If some issue strikes you as urgent and in dire need of a voice, be that voice. You don't have to be in the paid opinion stable to have your voice heard. The way for this page to be more representative of Aggieland's students is by playing host to more opinions from more people.
Over the course of the past semester, my predecessor Kenny Ryan, co-worker Kat Drinkwater and I strove to place as many student voices on the page as we responsibly could, and I intend to build on what we learned and make it into something even better.
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