Return of The Weekly: Discussing our recent resurgence

The last two semesters have been particularly exciting for us at The Weekly, and although we do not typically use the editorial to take a victory lap, we wanted to reflect on our most recent year of publication.

We filled The Weekly’s News section with the exact kind of local, Muhlenberg-centric reporting that makes The Weekly relevant. From student activism like the women’s, science and refugee ban marches to election coverage that resulted in three of our reporters serving as credentialed media members at the Tim Kaine rally in October and accurately captured post-election sentiments.

In Op/Ed, much of the discourse regarding the above events and reactions also took shape as well-crafted opinion pieces. We proudly played host to conversations about the lack of 9/11 memorializing and the recently announced tuition increase. Our editorials — often throw-away articles in past years — took on serious issues and served as calls to action.

At a school like Muhlenberg, where exceptional theater and performing arts departments thrive, the student newspaper’s Arts & Culture section should follow suit. We’ve previewed or reviewed all mainstage theater and dance performances, with highlights including Master Choreographers, Pirates of Penzance and Wig Out.

On the other hand, Muhlenberg isn’t necessarily known for its NCAA DIII sports program, but our current Sports section has improved greatly over its predecessors. We covered student-athlete protests on the football field, addressed sexual assault in light of Jessica Luther’s visit to campus and were at the forefront of updating the search for our new men’s basketball coach. Perhaps most importantly, the section no longer has a page (or more) of last week’s scores, and all individual game recaps feature interviews with student-athletes.

But our success transcends just the articles themselves.

For the first time in recent memory, all aspects of The Weekly — from our print edition to our website — are visually appealing. In a time of increased challenges for the print newspaper industry, ours is thriving; to that end, achievements in this department are primarily a result of the efforts of Jack Pennington, the Layout Editor. Over the summer, we are planning a dramatic redesign of our print edition, and we look forward to sharing the finished product with you in the fall.

Above all, we’ve reasserted ourselves as the ‘watchdog’ that any liberal arts college should have and the one that Muhlenberg had once come to know. Especially with respect to the construction of the Courts, the tuition hike and the recent Academic Policy Committee recommendations to the faculty, we’ve delivered answers and held campus leaders accountable. And following the long and storied tradition of media-government relationships, we’ve even quibbled with the Student Government Association. Ultimately, as addressed in prior editorials, the watchdog role is one we’re proud to once again fill for the foreseeable future.

Additionally, the non-graduating members of the Editorial Board would like to recognize the efforts of our three seniors: Kaitlin Errickson, Sara Gottlieb and Haris Bhatti. In three different departments — Sports, Arts & Culture and Photography — you have all had a noticeable impact on The Weekly, and we wish you the best after graduation!

Lastly, we’d like to thank our readers: whether this is your first time reading The Weekly or you’re a regular reader, all of our staff’s efforts would be for naught without you. And as the semester comes to a close and the summer is nearly upon us, we ask that you think of The Weekly in the fall. We look forward to continuing to serve the Muhlenberg College community, just as we have since 1883.