I first stepped into the Hullabaloo office during one of my first days as a Tulane freshman. That day, I was interviewing to be the sports layout editor. I had little idea what I was getting myself into, but I got the position. Since then, I have spent countless nights and hours in that office with hundreds of dedicated staff members. Together, we have created, produced and published more than 80 print editions of The Hullabaloo and more than one thousand articles over the past three years.

In my time at The Hullabaloo, I have served as sports layout editor, arcade layout editor, production manager and news editor. From designing the pages of the paper to writing and editing the content on those pages, I have forged what may be an untraditional path in my time here. In April, I ran for Editor-in-Chief on a platform that focused on the idea of transcendence, or the act of pushing beyond the ordinary limits of something.

I pledged to the staff that elected me and now to you, our readers, to push the Hullabaloo beyond the limits of what we have been and who we have served in the past. We will transcend our office in the Lavin-Bernick Center basement and involve more communities around campus in both our coverage and our staff. We will transcend the boundaries of today’s student journalism landscape by seeking out and publishing real and representative content.

In the coming year, we will actively build our organizational relationships with community partners and campus organizations including the Undergraduate Student Government, Tulane University Campus Programming and our fellow student media organizations. We will expand our digital presence by optimizing our website and by adding the position of Digital Editor to our board.

We will engage with our audiences by providing a subscription service through our website and a weekly newsletter. And we will hold ourselves more accountable internally, adjusting our hiring model to hire our board on a semesterly basis.

We will recruit and collaborate in inclusive spaces on campus and we will expand the efforts of our newest section, Intersections, to cover content that reflects the diverse interests, experiences and identities of our community.

We have hired a board of 30 dedicated people who I know will carry out these goals with pride. Our board members for the upcoming semester are young, but they are enthusiastic and ready to take on the improvements we have in store. Comprised of seven seniors, six juniors, and 17 sophomores, we hail from 15 states across the country, with one of our news editors from Singapore. The most represented state is California, which is home to five of our incoming board members. We have three board members each from Tennessee, Louisiana and Pennsylvania.

This year, our team will produce 26 print editions of our newspaper, accompanied by daily online content on our website and various social media platforms. As we embark on our 113^th volume of the Hullabaloo, we will strive to push ourselves beyond the ordinary limits in every initiative we implement, every paper we put out on the stands and every article we publish.

If you, our readers, ever think that we could be doing better, don’t hesitate to read our bylaws and constitution, offer any suggestions, reach out to me personally or come by our office in LBC room G06. We are always looking for students who want to contribute, and you can join our staff by emailing [email protected] or contacting any of our current board members. Until then, we will work to tell all sides of your stories and continue in our mission to act as the eyes and ears of the Tulane community.