To all of our readers - welcome back!
After a news-filled fall semester that included the capture of an alleged sexual predator near campus, two widely publicized academic debates and a scandal involving $300,000 in embezzled funds, we enter this semester in the middle of a still-busy news cycle. In today's edition of the Daily, you'll see coverage of major financial aid announcements, a potentially embarrassing lawsuit against the university and a tense and record-breaking race for national presidential nominations, among other stories.
As the new year kicks off in the midst of such developments, we at the Daily enter the spring semester with a renewed commitment to providing timely and substantive coverage, captivating our readers with clear writing and stimulating analysis, and providing a forum for interesting and provocative discussion of ideas - even controversial and unpopular ones.
You'll likely notice that a few changes have been made at the Daily to help us accomplish these goals. We'll be pushing for expanded coverage of ongoing stories, such as the embezzlement scandal, through collaboration between our news and features departments, along with crisper and more visually interesting design elements throughout the paper.
We're also very excited to announce the launch of a brand new version of our Web site, TuftsDaily.com. The new site, which includes a new layout, more audio and visual features and online updates for breaking news, will allow us to reach our readers more quickly and to present content beyond the limits of the printed page. We hope you'll check out our site and, if you like what you see, that you'll subscribe to receive our e-mail edition and breaking news updates in your e-mail inbox each day.
But the Daily cannot excel in - or even fulfill - its role as Tufts' newspaper of record without you, our readers. We'd like to thank you for being so active and engaged - each time you write an op-ed submission (e-mail oped@tuftsdaily.com to send us your thoughts on anything relevant to the Tufts community), write a letter to the editor (send them to daily@tuftsdaily.com), comment on our Web site or talk about something you read in the paper with your friends, classmates, professors or other members of our community, you help to improve our coverage.
As a group of students who spend most of our days and nights replacing commas with semicolons in the windowless basement of Curtis Hall, we may not always seem accessible or even in touch with the rest of the community. In order to change that, we rely on you for feedback and opinions. Have a problem with our coverage? Feel free to e-mail us, call us at 617-627-3090, or stop by our office (the entrance is behind Curtis) any afternoon Sunday through Thursday.
And of course, we also encourage all interested students to join the Tufts Daily as we start the new semester. We're currently looking for students with a wide variety of interests, including writing, editing, photography, computer design, technology, Web design and business. All of our positions emphasize learning and growth - rest assured, if you join the Daily, you'll gain new skills and hone old ones.
Thank you all for your feedback, input and even criticism; we're very excited to continue serving you with fresh and interesting coverage in 2008.
