(The following was submitted prior to the CD’s Jan. 26 elections.)
This has been quite a term so far. Although the production of the paper has been running like clockwork, there have been a few bumps along the road. But in the end, we are emerging much stronger and reassured of just how special The Cavalier Daily is.

When I say clockwork, I mean it. Although our first semester saw average roll times near 3 a.m., fall semester we upped our average roll time a good two hours! The entire staff is on the ball, doing an efficient and nearly flawless job.

The literary content is thriving with big stories. Under Managing Editor Emily Roper and Assistant Managing Editors Abby Curran and Sam Bresnehan, our pages have been intriguing day after day.

Their skills have been helped by a plethora of news fodder, including budget cuts, a severe drought, the first open honor trial in two years, University cut backs, a controversial parking garage and tuition hikes. The staff has done a great job reporting and synthesizing it all.

“Supplements” is also the word for this semester. When all is said and done, we will have produced five amazing supplements: The Sept. 11, 2002, supplement; the return of The Cavalier Daily Housing Guide; the annual Virginia Film Festival review; the Arts & Entertainment Book Review; and everyone’s favorite, Hoops, the annual ACC basketball supplement.

It’s truly amazing that our staff can produce a daily paper and still have extra time to devote to these special editions. We look forward to rounding out the term with them.

In a difficult decision, the managing board had to ask Executive Editor Jeffrey Eisenberg to choose between his position on the MB and his role as a public figure, that of counsel for Adam Boyd in the open honor trial. Feeling a moral duty to help a friend he felt was the victim of an injustice, Jeff left his post as executive editor. This was no easy task, but we have since seen that this was the right thing to do.

Members of the community, and our staff as well, have expressed their understanding of the situation. It’s tough to tell a friend to choose between two things he loves, but we had to do the right thing for the good of the paper.

In Jeff’s absence, the staff has stepped up to help out on the edit board’s writing of the lead editorials, and the opinion staff has been especially helpful. Though Jeff will be missed, the paper will go on as it always has.

Chief Financial Officer Justin Bernick has done a great job keeping us in the black during this economic downturn. We have maintained a strong advertising core and should do well on into the year. Nationals and inserts continue to flow in, and our locals haven’t dipped much at all.
Justin and our new advertising manager, Kristen Andersen, recently completed the new advertising manual, and it should help us garner even more financial support. In conjunction with the online staff, they are near the implementation of online advertising, which is sure to further expand our ad base. Our finances are in good hands.

Over the past few months, Operations Manager Peter Jackson and his photo, production and graphics staffs have all contributed to make the Sept. 11, 2002, supplement, the Housing Guide and the Virginia Film Festival Guide look superb and professional.

The Sept. 11 supplement was an exceptionally well-done tabloid edition, the highlights of which were the center spread photo collage by Lisa Florkowski and a somber T-shirt graphic by Clay Yount. Peter has put in many extra late hours piecing together these supplement.

His production, photo and graphics staffs have put in consistently talented work, and we don’t know what our paper would be without them.

In addition to all this, Peter upgraded our computers to the Macintosh OS-10 system and updated our layout software to InDesign 2.0, efforts that have contributed to our earlier roll times.

Director of Information Technology David Chu plans to redesign and rewrite software solutions for the newspaper production process to improve integration and efficiency of current operations, as well as write a portable and maintainable version in Java that can serve the needs of the Macs in the production department.

He continues to fix the problems the rest of us can’t figure out, and has a hard-working staff that helps him out frequently.

Online Manager Aaron Gussman and his staff recently debuted the new online redesign that, simply put, looks fantastic. It offers a smoother, more accessible look and design that Aaron promises is up-to-date with the latest in online technology. Check it out at www.cavalierdaily.com.

The staff also has implemented an “e-mail this article to a friend” feature to bring us up to speed with many online papers out there, and continue to plan new features to carry us further into the future of Web-based journalism. They have published the ever-popular faculty salaries feature, and maintain the A&E review database.

In order to share the talent of our supplement contributors, they also have set up well-designed sections to include the material from the supplements. We look forward to seeing where we can go from here.

On a final note, on Oct. 23, 400 students staged a silent protest of The Cavalier Daily offices in response to one of that day’s opinion columns, which angered a lot of people in the African-American community.

It was an amazing sight to see so many people united behind one cause, and it made us realize just how much our paper means to the community.

The following week, we met with the protest’s organizers to begin a dialogue about concerns with The Cavalier Daily’s coverage.

That’s our semester in a nutshell. We wish we could portray daily life down here, which continues to be a fun and exciting place to work. The staff works hard, but isn’t afraid to let loose.

We look forward to what the rest of the term has to hold, and to see what lies ahead for the 114.