The 111th Cavalier Daily staff is entering the home stretch of a productive year. Across the board, from our technology to our reporting to the way we teach journalism, The Cavalier Daily has made tremendous growth.

Managing Editor Lindsay Wise has overseen changes in the way we approach our front page. While Page 1 traditionally has existed simply as the news page, we now treat it with a more professional, dynamically evolving approach. Every department at the paper has had a story begin on Page 1 at least once this semester, and our combination of varied reporting and more prominent and interesting photos has made our front page exciting to produce and read.

With considerable help from CDAA Program Director Sarah Lindenfeld, Lindsay has also put together a great lineup of speakers for this year’s Cavalier Daily Journalism Conference. The conference, slated for Nov. 19, will focus on the evolving face of journalism as we enter a new century. We are pleased to welcome, among other wonderful speakers, Mark Stencel, a University alumnus and editor of The Washington Post’s Politics-Online. Lindsay also arranged a visit from Aly Colon, a consultant from the acclaimed Poynter Institute, who conducted a day-long series of sophisticated seminars tailored directly for our staff.

Our technology has seen marked changes, as well. Under the supervision of Operations Manager Michael Gillespie, our back room got a face lift this summer. Our production staff now works with the Adobe program InDesign, on all-new Mac computers. Michael has also overseen an ongoing transition that has moved most of our layout drawing to the production department. These changes have allowed us more creativity on pages and should yield better roll times.

Over the summer, Director of Information Technology Eric Hutchins created a wonderful new software program called ATLAS, which allows our editors to easily and quickly move their stories through the same uniform database, and allows the ME and AMEs to check on the progress of any story or photo and to read story summaries at any time. Eric’s fabulous program has met with rave reviews, and we are eagerly awaiting the unveiling of "ATLAS 2.0," which should allow for even better integration of the database with our production and online tasks.

Chief Financial Officer John Clark has taken the lead on a number of long-term planning initiatives for The Cavalier Daily. We hope to have the best, most productive transition ever with the 112th Managing Board, and John is hard at work to make sure they have all the information necessary to shorten their learning curve, get a head start on their ideas and make the most of their term.

John has also been out in front on a proposed new student activities building, slated for construction sometime around 2004. To increase our accessibility to students, potential staff members and advertisers, and to better protect our technology investments, we have begun conversations to place us in the new facility, or to relocate within Newcomb Hall when the facility is constructed. John has begun plans for such a move, and is working to make sure—through our own business practices and alumni support—that we are in the right financial position to do so.

Executive Editor Brian Haluska has made waves with his lead editorials. Brian has accomplished a number of notable little things, such as winning a new darkroom for Corks & Curls, getting courtesy phones installed in Alderman Library and helping jumpstart a program for faculty training in classroom technology. Brian has also taken on some big topics and won praise from the Board of Visitors and the Honor Committee for a series of honor-related edits during Honor Awareness Week.

Online Manager Jon Erdman unveils new online features at a rapid rate. Online Associate Sean Healey got a lot of attention this summer for his UVa. 101 package, a comprehensive online resource for new students that the University had never provided.

Online Editors Chu Hwang and Kevin Hechtkopf, not to be outdone, have produced an impressive Political Review feature, which hosts weekly columns and features on the campaign season. They’ll have lots of material to post in November, as we send reporters to Nashville, Austin, New York, Richmond, and Washington to provide what we think will be the nation’s best collegiate elections coverage.

Assistant Managing Editors Nicola M. White and Edward Hock were in charge of a massive recruiting effort this fall, which resulted in a very skilled, enthusiastic class of new staff writers. Their hard work has ensured that the CD will have a strong staff for several years to come.