After taking great strides in the last few years, the 111th Managing Board is preparing to put the finishing touches on a new and improved Cavalier Daily.

At February’s Rotunda Dinner, we announced that The Cavalier Daily took home an incredible 11 Virginia Press Association awards. This year, we’re looking to break the 20 barrier.

The Managing Board is commited to providing our staff opportunities to learn outside the newsroom. We’ve brought in guests for monthly workshops and are gearing up to find speakers and workshop leaders for what we hope will be a University-wide journalism conference in November.

We’re also excited about developments in our online department. At our January constitutionals, we added three online editors to the department, as well as engineers specializing in software, hardware and database. The department is headed by Online Manager Jon Erdman, and Jon’s energy and vision are tremendous assets. Online editors put the CD online each day and work on special long-term projects. Our expanded online coverage of student and national elections resulted from the hard work of the "OLEs," and each editor is working on a new feature for our website. We just posted "The Honors of Honor," a resource on the honor system, and are preparing to launch a very informative feature to keep readers posted on the latest speakers, events and entertainment options in the area.

With the expert assistance of Director of Information Technology Eric Hutchins, we’re exploring the CD’s technological horizons. Eric will be assisting Operations Manager Michael Gillespie this summer as the CD begins using InDesign, an industry-standard production package that will replace the older Pagemaker software. We’re excited about the possibilities InDesign provides, and our production staff is more than ready to tackle a new challenge by drawing most of our layouts themselves.

We’ve also worked to provide more diverse coverage. Our lead editorials have a broad perspective in part because Executive Editor Brian Haluska is an urban planning major in the School of Architecture. Brian draws on his various contacts to insure our editorials don’t cater just to College students. Our news and life staffs have been working with their writers to develop a broader array of story ideas, as well.

Under the guidance of Managing Editor Lindsay Wise and her dedicated assistants, Ed Hock and Nicola White, we’ve seen continued improvement in our business and health and science pages. Both departments have provided coverage directly relevant to the University, and have tracked down some of the fascinating things students and faculty are up to.

Our finances remain strong under the direction of Chief Financial Officer John A. Clark, whose foresight has us prepared to cope with the graduation of several talented ads reps.