Looking Back at My Time With The Advocate
No matter whether you have great, purposeful ambitions and experiences ahead or are heading into new adventures not by choice, moving on is hard.
I have been with The Advocate since January 2023, almost a year and a half, and that is a major part of my life. Roughly 8% of my life up to this point has been spent working with a wonderful team of writers and editors at this college newspaper. My departure is a bittersweet moment as I thoroughly enjoyed my time here working with some wonderful people, even as I look forward to my new journey and experiences.
Together, we have accomplished many great things: breaking down the fascinating topic of artificial intelligence and how it will change and shape our society; calling for action by the MHCC administration on ways our campus and student experience can improve; and vastly growing our sports coverage compared to the previous few years. We have set many goals and achieved a great number of them.
Photo provided by Andrew Hull
Let me tell you the story about how I first discovered what The Advocate is. I was sitting in my WR121 course, a course that many students take, and two people came walking into our classroom, one of them being our Journalism adviser, Howard Buck. He and a student editor gave a short presentation about the college newspaper and how we could get involved. I was very interested and decided to shoot an email to The Advocate’s address, and the next Monday, I walked into my first meeting of what would become many in Room 1369.
I was nervous about being in a new environment, with all of these new people. However, since that first meeting I have loved my time working at the college newspaper and the many students and advisers I have had the pleasure of working with.
Based on that first encounter, I have made it a goal to create a warm and inviting space where staff members feel like they can be themselves and pitch whatever content ideas they would like to see pursued. To me, my staff should feel like they belong to our team and that their contributions are important and beneficial. I want my staff to feel comfortable making large goals and understanding that it’s okay to fail because you can pick yourself back up and try again. My experience of being the Editor-in-Chief of The Advocate has taught me so many valuable lessons in leadership, accepting criticism, and resolving conflicts.
This 2023-24 academic year, we produced more content than the previous year, strived for more campus-focused newspaper issues, and considerably expanded our staff. This year we have released 14 newspaper issues; many of these have been 12 pages, with some being 16 pages, such as this one. As a team, we have successfully emphasized and created campus-focused content that touches on the needs of students. I have also been very proud of our team’s willingness to write sports content and cover our Saints athletic teams, even when their season may not be the best.
While I am graduating from MHCC in just a few weeks, passing on the challenge and responsibility to next year’s Editor-in-Chief, I hope that I have set them up for the highest possible chance of success. Being the EIC takes a large time commitment and a willingness to manage a staff of busy students who may not have much time to commit to the newspaper. While I am proud of what we all accomplished this year here, I believe next year’s team can accomplish even more.
I will fondly remember my time at The Advocate and my time with both advisers, Howard and Dan Ernst, as an enjoyable experience. I hope that our work this year has led our readers, like you, to understand more about our campus and the problems we see in our community.
Editor-in-Chief
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