Staff Editorial: The 119th Board says goodbye

This past year has been eventful. There was conflict on international, domestic and local fronts, with war raging in Iraq, a major Supreme Court victory for affirmative action supporters and a heated mayoral election in Philadelphia.

It has also been a year of controversy within the confines of campus. Members of the graduate student body sought unionization through a hard-fought election campaign. For the first time in a decade, the University began the process of finding a new president. There was the arrival of retail outlets and the departure of Penn administrators.

Through it all, we have been here at 4015 Walnut Street, doing our best to provide this campus with a reliable and professional source of news on a daily basis. And we are proud of our accomplishments, including our third straight Pacemaker Award, marking us as one of the top college newspapers in the country.

But over the past year, the 119th Board of Editors and Managers has tried its best to ensure that this organization's long tradition of service to the community is continued. We gladly took on the responsibility, and we worked diligently to put out an unbiased, accurate portrayal of the day's news.

This year, we attempted to broaden our coverage, offering more in-depth features and series on the 10th anniversary of the Water Buffalo scandal and Judith Rodin's legacy. We sent sports reporters to the NCAA basketball tournament, photographers to anti-war protests and 34th Street writers to the city's cultural hotspots. We also updated the paper's appearance by making our first major redesign in almost a decade.

As we prepare to hand over the reins of this newspaper to a new board of eager editors and managers this weekend, we are confident that our successors will build on our successes and learn from our mistakes. We know that whether it's the opening of a new restaurant or the announcement of a new president, they will be there with pencil and paper in hand and a camera not far behind. And for that we are thankful.

But most importantly, we thank you, our readers, for looking to us as a source of news on this campus. This is, after all, your newspaper, and we hope we have served you well over this past year. It hasn't been easy, but by picking up the paper each morning, you have made this last year worthwhile for all of us.

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