Editorial

The Spec’s midterm review

By Editorial Staff

Tags editorial

As we near the midpoint of the semester, The Spectator would like to take this opportunity to reflect on our work in 2016 so far.

Last week, we reported on this year’s third Crucial Conversation gathering under the headline “Decreased attendance for third Community Crucial Conversation.” A photo showed many empty seats in the Fillius Events Barn during the event. Responses to this piece were mixed, since some viewed the portrayal of lower attendance as negative commentary on the initiative.

Originally established in response to student demand, the first Community Crucial Conversation took place in November with the stated goal of discussing diversity, Yik Yak and the need for more faculty of color at Hamilton.  Both this and the later conversation in December were extremely well-attended and reportedly productive. According to a Spec article from Dec. 3, (“Campus continues to debate and discuss inclusion”), everyone who had attended that meeting agreed to take an active role in “making our community better.”  In light of this, it seems particularly noteworthy that the third conversation was so poorly attended.

Though it may be disheartening to find reports of decreased attendance to these essential discussions in our pages, it is nonetheless imperative that they be noted. The Spectator’s job is not to report rosy campus propaganda, but to establish facts. If the campus population is under the false impression that others are doing the work for them, the social justice initiative will not be able to continue. It is absolutely necessary, therefore, that The Spectator pursues a high degree of journalistic integrity--that the campus may interact with reality instead of fall into comfortable complacency with a result of a false understanding of the events taking place around us.

Along with this, we hope for better engagement with the community. We have been pleased with the recent Letters to the Editor, signalling an appreciable level of community commitment and passion regarding the goings-on about campus. Moreover, a recent e-mail from Dean of Faculty Pat Reynolds on replacing the valedictorian speaker at Commencement references reporting by the Spec. We hope that in reporting on the anticipated change, we gave the process a little nudge forward, and we hope to be more proactive like that in the future. 

Despite our many limitations as an organization, we aim to give back more to the community—facilitating conversations, sharing stories and pushing issues into public discussion—and we hope that these few moments from the semester so far are a sign that we’re moving in the right direction. 

We invite your feedback; let us know you think we’re doing through emails or letters to the editor.

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