For the first issue of The Hullabaloo’s 113th volume last June, I wrote my very first Letter from the Editor introducing you, our readers, to me, our staff and our goals.

In that letter, I recapped the Editor-in-Chief platform on which I ran in April, which focused on the idea of transcendence, or pushing beyond the ordinary limits of something. I outlined my goals to push The Hullabaloo beyond the ordinary limits of what we have been and who we have served in the past. I vowed to work more actively with The Hullabaloo’s community partners and campus organizations, to expand our publication’s digital presence and to more proactively engage with you, our audience.

Since then, The Hullabaloo has produced 13 print editions of the newspaper, published more than 350 articles on our website and generated more than 400,000 clicks on our website. We have also made considerable progress in achieving much of what we set out to do in June.

With help from Tulane’s Undergraduate Student Government Media Board Council, a body comprised of five student media organizations, we have begun to forge partnerships with our fellow student media groups. The most recent partnership is a video of USG’s most recent senate meeting, which was filmed and produced for The Hullabaloo’s Facebook page by Tulane University Broadcasting Entertainment.

In November, The Hullabaloo co-hosted a Media Day reception, inviting students, faculty, staff and administrators to come and meet the student leaders of Tulane’s media organizations and tour our offices in the basement of the Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life. We also worked to advance partnerships beyond Tulane’s campus boundaries, publishing a dining hall review article in collaboration with Loyola University’s student newspaper earlier this semester.

As far as The Hullabaloo’s digital presence and audience engagement, we have added the position of Digital Editor to our board to help create and maintain social media platforms and channels through which we can effectively communicate with and inform our readers. Our newsletter, an initiative started for this volume of The Hullabaloo, sends weekly recaps of our top stories and has more than 1,100 subscribers so far.

We were also able to attend the Associated Collegiate Press/College Media Association Convention this October in Dallas, where we met with student journalists and advisers from across the country and came home as a Pacemaker Finalist and Pinnacle Award winner.

I am immensely proud of the Fall 2017 staff and the progress we we were able to make, but there is always much room for improvement, and I am confident that we will only continue to grow in the next semester.

As part of my attempt to hold The Hullabaloo more accountable internally, we adjusted our hiring model this semester to hire our board on a semesterly, rather than yearly, basis. The Spring 2018 board was hired this weekend and consists of 32 committed undergraduate students who I am confident will continue to push The Hullabaloo beyond its ordinary limits.

With seven seniors, seven juniors, 12 sophomores and six freshmen, our Spring 2018 board is comprised of talented section editors, designers, copy editors, business managers, photographers, artists and digital experts.

The Hullabaloo’s spring semester board has six members from California, five from Louisiana, two each from Tennessee, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Illinois, and one each from Maryland, Texas, Ohio, New York, Florida, Massachusetts, Arizona, Alabama and Singapore. Our Spring 2018 board members are studying a wide range of disciplines at Tulane, including political science, English, Africana studies, economics, linguistics, finance, philosophy, marketing, environmental studies, neuroscience, mathematics, computer science, Latin American studies, public health and more.

This diverse and passionate group of students will create daily content on our website and social media platforms and will publish 11 print editions of the newspaper, with our first edition coming out on Jan. 25. Though the Spring 2018 board has already been selected, we are always looking for dedicated students to join our staff, and you can email [email protected] for more information.

As we look toward a new semester, The Hullabaloo remains committed to acting as the eyes and ears of the Tulane community, to providing students with the information and resources they need to navigate Tulane successfully and to telling your stories as best we can. If you or someone you know ever believes that we are not living up to our mission, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected] or [email protected], or come by our office in LBC room G06.

Our governing policies are available on our website, and you can make anonymous suggestions to us by clicking here. We are always looking for ways to improve, and we welcome any feedback you may have.

It is with sincere appreciation that I thank all the Tulane students, staff, faculty, administrators and community members who continue to make our reporting possible. Since 1905, you have trusted us to inform, educate and represent you. With your continued support and readership, The Hullabaloo staff and I cannot wait to continue telling your stories and the stories that matter most to our community.

Good luck with finals, happy holidays and a-helluva-Hullabaloo!

Lily Milwit
Editor-in-Chief