At The College Voice, we publish arts, news, opinions, sports, and that which lies in between. In this special edition, you will find that the entire breadth of these sections covers our current campus protests. In other words, Dean King’s act of personal and professional sacrifice is one that permeates every corner of our campus environment.
Last October, I dived deep into the archives and found that campus-wide dissent through the years has been set ablaze by student protest, and student journalism has been a pivotal impetus behind this change. Students challenged the $10 million Shain Library renovation in a wave of protest against inaccessibility on campus, Fanning Hall was occupied in 2016 by pro-Palestine activists, and we now see a similar swell of collective action against President Katherine Bergeron.
Years from now, I suspect that future student journalists will sift through the digital archives to be reminded that Dean King’s resignation in 2023 was an act of integrity that made visible decades of an underfunded and unsupported DIEI. They will find stories on how each academic department critically responded to current climate (Layout Editor Zoe Dubelier ‘23, page 1, 3), insight into how our lackluster community engagement efforts have in fact always been a symptom of undermining institutional equity and inclusion (Ana Ostrovsky ‘23, page 8, 9), and an overall understanding about how culture might begin to change, starting with revising an outdated set of mission statements (EICs Sam Maidenberg and Catja Christensen, page __). These past two weeks have shown me in stark form how we see these student efforts as bodies of knowledge, agency, progress, and ultimately institutional reform.
Last week, TCV staff spent Wednesday night cooped up in the office fact-checking information and writing on the campus protest just moments before. The next day, we published our special edition story on King’s resignation, and it has garnered over 6,000 reads just on our website. The printed story has also rapidly traversed pockets of campus life. We hope that students, faculty, staff, and those far beyond our hilltop will look to The College Voice as both an outlet for information and platform for key voices.
Last edition, our EICs said it well: The College Voice acts as a biweekly archive of life at Conn. We want to publish your perspectives and hear your ideas. Come to our biweekly pitch meetings in the Alice Johnson Room at 8pm, send us an email at thecollegevoice@conncoll.edu, and follow our Insta @the_collegevoice!
Warmly,
Lucie Englehardt ‘23 (Managing Editor)
