We started Volume 53 of the Rank&File with a number of perhaps rather bold goals. Despite operating with a staff that was far smaller than any of us were used to with just 13 members, we hoped to radically expand our online presence and improve on our role as a public forum. We challenged our boundaries by partnering with the ESOL department to publish articles in Farsi, Japanese and Spanish as well as planned and executed an overhaul of our print design in January.
We wanted to push ourselves further as a staff, and sometimes we fell short. The staff frequently did not finish until 10 p.m. on our last night of production, and we’ll miss the cathartic rush of finally sending off a month’s worth of work at least slightly more than we will miss hastily consumed Ledo’s pizzas.
In retrospect, we could have bitten off less. We could have stepped back and organized our time for the sake of efficiency rather than pushing ourselves and each other so hard. But with all things considered, we are proud of the high standards we strived to reach and all that we were able to achieve.
Our staff is losing both its graduating seniors and its adviser Daniel Reinish for Volume 54, and it’s going to take a significant amount of work to keep up the standards we’ve all set for ourselves with the smaller staff and without Reinish’s always well-timed two cents. That being said, we have confidence in Ethan and all of the upcoming section editors to step up to the task. We look forward to seeing what’s next for the Rank&File.