The 114th year of The Cavalier Daily is already more than halfway over, but it seems like only yesterday when the term began.
Most boards can reminisce about late roll times and difficult staff issues distinguishing the beginning of their term, and a final, defining moment where everything seems to “click” and begins to run smoothly. Fortunately for us, the transition to the 114th was absolutely seamless.
It would be difficult to overstate the talent and dedication of the junior board this past year.
The new batch of department editors brought ample experience and lots of energy to the table, making the managing board’s jobs incredibly easy and avoiding the “bump” in roll times. In fact, roll times actually went down after the transition, and have been relatively stable since.
Speed is, however, a poor measure of performance on its own. But the quality of work the staff has produced this past semester is testament to the fact that they can produce incredible work every day, and do it faster than anyone else.
The literary staff has tackled some difficult and important issues this past semester. In the wake of the alleged racially-motivated assault on Student Council President Daisy Lundy, intense national media scrutiny surrounded the issue of race at the University, and the staff has consistently led the way in unraveling the string of complex and controversial events surrounding the race issue for our readers.
The war in Iraq, the economic downturn, budget cuts and their effect on the University, the Columbia disaster, student elections scandals and reforms and the expansion of the ACC all have left their mark on our pages and on students at the University.
The sports staff is also working on a new football supplement, “the Gridiron,” to complement our basketball, book review and film festival supplements. We are also entertaining the possibility of a supplement dedicated to examining racial tensions and diversity issues at the University in-depth.
Possibly the most exciting development last semester was the completion of the final step in The Cavalier Daily’s journey toward digitization. With the purchase of four new SLR digital cameras and the creation of a new archiving process for digital photos, the staff has moved completely into the digital age.
I remember when I first arrived at The Cavalier Daily three short years ago. Pages were still rolled out by hand and shipped to Culpeper in the back of a truck. The paper has come a long way since then —not a single roll of film has been developed in the darkroom since the purchase of the cameras, and every part of the production process is completed faster, better and cheaper with computers. A new laptop computer was purchased, allowing staffers to easily transmit digital images online when reporters go out in the field for away games and other events, freeing us from being bound to the darkroom and further decreasing roll times.
In the near future, editors will be able to browse archives of photos with attached captions online at every single computer on our intranet, increasing speed, efficiency and page quality.
The board also made the decision to upgrade the aging computer network in the basement, replacing six-year-old PCs with 25 shiny new Dells, allowing us to make better use of newer, faster networking software with better maintenance and software capabilities.
The investments in new technology this semester have been expensive, but in the long-run, providing the most advanced, up-to-date technology possible is absolutely essential to fulfilling our goal of educating students and future journalists in a rapidly changing and dynamic media industry. With better tools, The Cavalier Daily becomes a far a better paper, and it also becomes a much better school.
Also on the technology front, the advertising and business staffs are in the process of implementing new online ads booking software developed in-house. Once the software is fully integrated into our operations by the end of next semester, advertisers will be able to submit ads online, and advertising reps will be able to manage individual accounts, payroll and booking through our intranet, replacing our outdated, paper-based booking method for good.
Fancy gadgets are nice, but without great people to run them, they don’t mean anything. Next fall the board has planned a major recruitment push to reach segments of the University community with vast resources usually left untapped by the CD.
The Cavalier Daily can be a tremendous resource for students interested in a vast array of fields, from writing to business to technology, and the paper also stands to benefit tremendously from attracting volunteers from diverse backgrounds with talent in all of these areas.
It is easy to become complacent with the same types of people who manage to find their way to the newspaper every year, but if we make the extra effort to reach out to other organizations and other communities ourselves, we can accomplish much more.
These are exciting times for the University and exciting times for The Cavalier Daily. The paper has never been larger, better or more attractive, due to new technology and a professional and motivated staff that is increasingly committed to making The Cavalier Daily the best it can possibly be for their fellow students, themselves and the rest of the community.
The face of the University has changed dramatically over the past decade, and the future promises to be even more exciting.
Next semester readers will find articles on more construction projects than the University has ever been engaged in at a single time in its history, including the new John Paul Jones arena, the South Lawn complex and the fine arts precinct.
The next capital campaign will begin to take shape next semester, and with it, a greater degree of financial independence from the state that will dramatically change the institution in the near future.
And next semester, The Cavalier Daily will be right there when it all happens, like we’ve always been, for 114 years and counting.