It's been a busy summer for those on staff who remained in Charlottesville. Executive Editor John Flowers has been acting as summer editor-in-chief because my parents insisted I work in New Jersey and make money.

In the eyes of many staff members, one of the most important changes they will find upon return is the new couches. Newcomb Hall finally has given us couches to replace those that were falling apart and were rumored to have spider eggs nesting in the cushions.

For Managing Editor Nancy Youssef, who stayed in Charlottesville mostly to take summer school classes, the summer still has been packed with paper projects. Primarily, she has been working with the staff to compile a list of books and software (for example, CD-ROMs with phone numbers for the whole country, etc.) necessary for the Cavalier Daily's Research Center. She is hoping to have all the Research Center stocked and in working order by the end of the summer. She is asking anyone who is willing to make donations to the Center, or has advice about where or what to order to call her at: (804) 924-1095.

Nancy also has been finalizing plans for the fourth annual Cavalier Daily Conference, set for September 20 in the Newcomb Hall Ballroom. Included in the weekends' festivities are a talk by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Mike Vitez from The Philadelphia Inquirer and workshops by other professional journalists who can lend advice to every department.

Additionally, due to the absence of Business Manager Shawn Batten, Nancy has undertaken some initial conversations with alumnus Richard Daniel Hardy about the possibility of putting ads on the web. Under Richard's suggestion, the Cavalier Daily will talk to the Darden Graduate Business School about having a class sponsor a project centered around looking into the details concerning ads on our web site. Her final big project is the new style manual, which hasn't been updated since 1995. Current plans aim to have the new book out by the end of summer.

Speaking of web sites, while our web site search engine is up and running once again, other modifications are still pending for the site. After an unfortunate computer problem last school year, which resulted in lost work, Webmaster Chris Saunders has begun fresh and is designing a whole new look for our web page, and the goal is to have the new look up by October.

News Editor Mandy Biles, recipient of the Cavalier Daily Alumni Association Harding Scholarship, and Production Editor Mac McNeer, recipient of a $500 CDAA summer stipend, are both having a wonderful time and learning a lot this summer in their internships.

Other events coming up for the summer include a long awaited network upgrade. The week following the summer mail-out issue the weekly summer production will be halted for a short time while the newspaper upgrades the computers to an Ethernet cabling system under the watchful eye of Operations Manager Elizabeth Williams, who will have returned from her summer in Spain.

John Flowers attend Leadership 2000 in my absence and lived in the Leadership 2000 house, which has proven very beneficial to the newspaper's relations with other major University organizations. Nancy and John have fostered some enlightening discussions with other student leaders from the Honor Committee, Judiciary Committee, and leaders of the minority groups. According to Nancy, the discussions have been honest about where we have failed in communication and where they have been disappointed with our coverage. The discussions have led to what will be a joint effort between numerous organizations next year to recruit more minorities to our staff. One such way will be our participation in "Source" an activity sponsored by the Black Student Association at the end of September, which should be a great recruitment opportunity.

As to our summer news coverage, some of the biggest stories around the University have been:

• Three attacks around the Beta Bridge.
  
• An alumnus donated $25 million to the athletic department, the biggest gift ever given to a university, and the University will match that gift in order to make improvements to Scott Stadium.
  
• An alumnus donated $2 million to the University for a media studies department, opening up the possibility for a media studies major.
  
• Surprisingly, the balcony collapse and OAAA revamping have disappeared from the limelight..

During the coming year, one of The Cavalier Daily's biggest goals is expanding our minority staff. John and Nancy have been instrumental this summer with their active pursuit of connections with all groups involved.

I hope to add a thorough collection of information about summer inters from around the country to the Resource Center by the end of fall semester so more of our staffers know where to go to get the good internships they want.

If anyone has any information about possible journalism internships, please let me know.