Dear West Chester,
I hope you all enjoyed our five seconds of spring this past week; those two 65-degree days were nice, but of course mother nature doesn’t decide these things—Punxsutawney Phil does, and he has spoken.
As far as Quad-related things go, this is by far our smallest issue yet, clocking in at a concise 20 pages. At that, I urge you all—write for The Quad! One thing I was most excited about upon being elected editor-in-chief last spring was figuring out ways we could reach more students and encourage as many people as possible to use The Quad as a platform to share their voices across campus, the community and beyond (and let’s face it, with the prevalence of the internet, “beyond” isn’t really that far away). Now more than ever, as we see our country further divide itself based on issues of politics, race, etc., I highly encourage you all to use your voice and create and sustain a campus-wide dialogue on important topics. Whether your passion lies in social issues, matters of politics, local organizations/causes, current events—whether local, national or international—or anything else, do something about it; share it.
One of the most amazing things about this age of internet culture is the ease with which we can all share our opinions, solicited or not. This is one of the reasons I find myself so passionate about sharing The Quad with the students and faculty of West Chester University; to have such an open platform for discussion, wherein quite literally any student can put in their two cents, is such a privilege that I never really considered. Especially with such huge issues like the mass shooting that occurred this past week in Florida (article on page 3) all the way to the gerrymandering controversy going on in Pa. (article on page 4), there’s certainly no shortage of issues to discuss.
Well, while I had no intentions for this letter to turn into a manifesto on the beauty of free speech, all I can say is that I’m very fortunate to even have this platform to share what I have to say with an entire community; I cannot stress enough how much I hope to see more and more students take advantage of this great opportunity.