Dear Readers,

Welcome back to another semester on campus! We hope everyone had a fun and relaxing break.

We are thrilled to be at the helm of The Argus as Editors-in-Chief for the spring semester. Both of us have been members of the paper since setting foot on campus as first-years. This paper means so much to both of us, and we are excited to build upon its success throughout the spring. Each semester provides an opportunity to expand previous systems and create change to allow The Argus to better serve the campus and Middletown communities. We want to share with you some of what we’ve been working on and some of what we hope to accomplish in the months to come.

Our priorities this semester begin with an emphasis on community. For us, this means fostering stronger relationships with the Wesleyan and Middletown communities so that The Argus truly reflects the readership it intends to serve. We strive to provide even more well-rounded, inclusive, reliable, and quality coverage, and we want your voices to be heard throughout the process. Submit a tip on our website or reach out to us or to any of our editors if there is ever anything you believe we should be covering. The Argus functions thanks to you, our readers, and we want this newspaper to be a space where everyone’s ideas are taken into account.

We also seek to focus on quality over quantity. We take pride in being the nation’s oldest biweekly collegiate newspaper (except in wartime and pandemics), and we take our responsibilities seriously. However, we want to ensure that every article we publish meets the highest of editorial standards that we hope to embody at The Argus. Not only do we want all our writers and editors to feel proud of their work, but we want you to enjoy reading it. 

On that note, this semester we are reaffirming our dedication to building a representative and diverse community and publishing articles that reflect these values. We take pride in continuing the efforts of our predecessors, notably through the Argus Voices Fund, which offers financial compensation to low-income students of color. If you are interested in supporting these efforts, we are actively fundraising to provide assurances that the Argus Voices Fund and the support it provides to our low-income student members of color will continue in the future. 

We also intend to further bolster our support for our staff and provide greater transparency and accessibility to our readers. This involves reviewing our newsroom practices and continuing ongoing initiatives. For example, we would like to emphasize the importance of our coverage tracker, a system for gathering quantitative data about our sources and article topics so we can analyze our findings and make our coverage more inclusive. We will work closely with Argus staff and community members throughout the semester to ensure that our tracking methods successfully contribute towards an accurate representation of our coverage and sources. 

Last semester, our fantastic staff launched a number of recurring columns that have enriched The Argus. This included delving into past issues with From The Argives, traveling the world with Argus Overseas, and featuring student athletes in Play(er) of the Week, to name a few. We are eager to see these columns continue to evolve, and we welcome any ideas for new columns in the future. 

We are thrilled to announce that The Argus will relaunch its food section this semester with the intention of covering all things cuisine-related, both on campus and in Middletown, thanks to Head Food Editor Lewis Woloch ’24 and Assistant Food Editor Lia Franklin ’24. The Argus Podcast is also making a comeback, and we can’t wait to see what Podcast Editor Lyah Muktavaram ’26 has in store. We believe that these new additions to our coverage will broaden the regular scope of our coverage, introducing new avenues for our writers and staff to engage with the community and permitting our readers and contributors to enjoy even more interesting and comprehensive reporting on the Wesleyan and Middletown communities. 

As we begin the spring semester, we would like to acknowledge the work of our predecessors, our current staff, and everyone involved in The Argus pipeline, from idea to publication to readership. If you would like to be further involved, we welcome you to attend one of our weekly Sunday meetings held in Usdan 108 at 5:00 p.m. To keep up with the latest ongoings on campus and at The Argus, please consider signing up for our newsletter and following us on our socials: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. And as always, make sure to keep an eye out for our new issues online and in print every Tuesday and Friday! 

However you prefer your Argus news and updates, we are excited to begin this semester’s journey with you, and we hope you enjoy the first issue.

Sincerely,

Andrew Lu ’23 and Rachel Wachman ’24

Andrew Lu can be reached at ajlu@wesleyan.edu.

Rachel Wachman can be reached at rwachman@wesleyan.edu.