Next year, the journalism publications (newspaper, online and yearbook) will be combining staffs, the senior editors from this year will be entering college, and new editors will be filling their positions. Before that happens, here are all of the new editors’ plans for improving the staff and working with the changes next year.

Addie Wendel
Grade: Sophomore
Position: Newspaper Design Editor
Plans to improve the staff: “Myself and the yearbook design editor, next year, we’re both going to be juniors, and that’s going to be a little weird, especially for the incoming freshmen. But I think having that kind of less experienced perspective on the publication could lead to more breakthroughs. We’re less experienced, so we don’t really know what we’re doing, so it encourages experimentation and, with design, experimentation is what you want.”

Caitlin Dodd
Grade: Junior
Position: Yearbook Co-Editor in Chief
Plans to improve the staff: “I think, as a staff, we should do more bonding experiences, especially since we’re combining staffs. Getting to know people that were on newspaper last year, that’s going to be one of the biggest changes that is happening with all of these new people. So I think it’d be really good if we started to do more bonding activities, so we can get to know everyone better and make the staff more unified and more close.”

Christina Craig
Grade: Junior
Position: Staff Co-Photo Editor
Plans to improve the staff: “I want to make sure that our photographers are advancing their skills and contributing quality photography to both publications. Photography is a very critical component to journalism, and I believe that if, as an editor, I ensure that the staff’s photographers have learned proper photography techniques and technology, etcetera, that the publication will be benefited overall. And just spending more time with the photographers because I think that’s really important.”

Ella Spillman
Grade: Sophomore
Position: Yearbook Design Editor
Plans to improve the staff: “I know a lot of people are kind of reluctant to combine the staffs, and so I really want to make sure that everyone is okay with each other, and I think that’d really help to be more productive. I know in yearbook that’s a big problem for us.”

Hala Hamid
Grade: Junior
Position: Staff Co-Copy Editor
Plans to improve the staff: “Just to help make it easier on the editors-in-chief and to go through the stories more with Lauren and look at them before they move on, so there are more sets of eyes looking at the stories. And just to fix all the stories and make sure they’re good.”

Haley Van Vleck
Grade: Sophomore
Position: Staff Managing Editor
Plans to improve the staff: “Being able to help unify the two staffs together with them now being combined, and I hope, since it’s basically my job to do the editors-in-chief’s stuff they don’t want to do, that I can just help doing that, so then they have less stuff that they can do, so the quality of their productions can be better.”

Julia Pfannenstiel
Grade: Junior
Position: Staff Advertisement Designer
Plans to improve the staff: “Hopefully, just the whole flow of communication between parents and students go much smoother than it has in the past. More of like, customer service area of that whole thing.”

Kaya Shafer
Grade: Freshman
Position: Staff Assistant Copy Editor
Plans to improve the staff: “Make sure that everyone has the opportunity to make their stories their own and make them more interesting. I haven’t really been on staff for too long, but from what I’ve noticed, my stories, I like to make them be more about something than just like track or whatever. I want to make them important.”

Lauren Brittain
Grade: Sophomore
Position: Staff Co-Copy Editor
Plans to improve the staff: “I definitely want to do more stories that our students relate to and find really interesting. The first story we did in the first issue of the year was like feminism, and everyone like blew up over that. I want that to be every feature story. I think sometimes we do boring feature stories, and partially that’s because no one does story pitches sometimes, which that’s another thing I’d definitely want to improve is organization.”

Libby Stanford
Grade: Junior
Position: Online Co-Editor in Chief
Plans to improve the staff: “I want to have more organization and have it, so it’s like a fluid system, so people are constantly writing for online, and there are online stories always coming out. Also, I just want to make people think it’s more important than they do at the moment.”

Lizzy Patton
Grade: Junior
Position: Staff Social Media Editor
Plans to improve the staff: “Because we are uniting the Talon and the Free Press, we are going to do that starting with social media, so everyone will have days they tweet. So by carrying over the fact that you’re part of both publications into social media, will help create breakthroughs for everyone. Backing up all the editors too, so we’re all on the same page, and that way we’re organized, and we promote organization for both publications. I just have to make sure everyone is on the same page for social media, but that will help make sure everyone is on the same page in the room.”

Maame Britwum
Grade: Junior
Position: Online Co-Editor in Chief
Plans to improve the staff: “For improving the staff, we want to get more of a set-in-stone group of people that are going to be working online because I know, at least in the two quarters that I’ve been here, it’s been a little touch and go. I think solidifying due dates in a sense because online should be more like news now. You can’t have news now every hour, but you can put it out more frequently than you can in print. So I think solidifying due dates, solidifying a staff for every quarter is going to help us make it, so that it is more like an updated version of the print rather than, ‘We print out stories once every week or so’ type of mentality.”

Rose Arachtingi
Grade: Junior
Position: Staff Co-Photo Editor
Plans to improve the staff: “I’m definitely going to try and go with every photographer to at least one or two of their first shoots and double check with them every day and go through their photos with them. Try and make sure that they’re doing okay and work with them individually. There was a lot of people this year and only two (photo) editors, so I didn’t feel like that happened as much.”

Samantha Travis
Grade: Junior
Position: Yearbook Co-Editor in Chief
Plans to improve the staff: “One thing we see that lacks in our book compared to other books at conferences is our writing, majorly our writing. So next year, I’m hoping to use more writing to incorporate our theme into the book and have a kick-butt theme also, which is already in the works. So mostly getting writing in and focusing on that. Also, keeping up with modern times, like we like to keep up with modern design, and not going back.”

Sam Goodwin
Grade: Junior
Position: Staff Co-Photo Editor
Plans to improve the staff: “It’s a completely different system (next year), so you have to come up with a completely different system to run the photography, and to improve it, we are going to have to get that system set up and running … I guess on a really basic level: better communication and better pictures, not just mugshots.”

Sydney Gard
Grade: Junior
Position: Newspaper Co-Editor in Chief
Plans to improve the staff: “Next year, we plan on combining the staffs, which will create a challenge, but we hope that it will unify the journalism department further. Strictly in the newspaper department, we are hoping to continue the success in contests. Also just keeping a strong newspaper. A personal goal of mine would be to get more students at Free State to be more interested in reading the paper.”

Sydney Vogelsang
Grade: Sophomore
Position: Staff Business Editor
Plans to improve the staff: “I’m hoping to get everyone advertising before school starts. Then changing from Osage Graphics because they mess things up a lot.”

Trenna Soderling
Grade: Junior
Position: Newspaper Co-Editor in Chief
Plans to improve the staff: “I think that it’s important to have a wide variety of stories, and I think that, as far as managing the print side of things, it’s important to create stories that are lasting because it only comes out once a month, and it stays in the stands for a while. So I think, just sort of a continuation of what’s been happening this year as far as making sure your stories are relevant by the time they may come out and the student body is interested.”