As I sit behind the table, I look out to the audience of my peers, and nervously await Dean Bacon’s next question to our panel of student leaders.
Dean Bacon asks a question that at first makes me go completely still. Suddenly, my thoughts begin to race. How can I begin to explain something that I have thought about so intensely this past year, something that has become so close to my heart.
“What are some of the responsibilities you have as a student leader?”
Seems like a pretty simple question on the surface, right?
However, I start breaking this question down into different sub-questions: first and foremost, what are my responsibilities towards the student body? What are my responsibilities as a student leader towards my university? What are my responsibilities towards the larger Jewish community?
I push back my chair, ready to answer first. I fumble as I stand up, as I can only think about how this question encompasses every rewarding moment, every challenge, and every ounce of gratitude I have towards my experiences as Editor in Chief of The Yeshiva University Observer this past year.
I begin to speak about the weight of the dual-responsibility I feel towards both the student body, as well as towards the university. I begin to ramble about how as a student publication, though we may not be the public faces of student leadership, we are at the forefront of facilitating students’ needs and representing the university to all.
Like my moment on the panel, writing my “final editorial” is a moment to reflect upon the ramifications of these responsibilities, and upon everything that has happened this year.
As I see it, I have a few options.
I can first take this moment to begin to regale the successes that we had this year. And there were many. Every month, we had thousands of viewers on our website. We had an audience which was deeply invested in learning about the transitional period that our university is currently experiencing. We had an audience which depended on The Observer as its number one source for breaking news this academic year.
After all, we had a year of “firsts.” We were the first to report that the Einstein merger with Montefiore was first terminated, and then again were the first to report the details behind the merger being solidified. We were the first to publish the merging, and the details behind the merging, of the Yeshiva College and Stern College Arts and Science departments, only minutes after being announced. We were the first to publish the YC faculty “no-confidence” vote in President Joel, and then were the first to investigate how the faculty of Stern College was affected and responded to these events.
A student recently told me, half jokingly, “When I saw on my Facebook newsfeed an article that said ‘breaking’ before the title, I instantly knew that it was The Observer reporting on another news story that would be the talking points of the next few weeks between students, faculty, and administration.” Every time we had these moments of “firsts,” there was also this pulsating excitement stemming from feeling fulfillment for being able to serve as a medium of knowledge for the university’s population.
The Observer has also served as a forum for issues that students and the broader Jewish community alike have been grappling with this year. We have covered anti-Semitism in Europe and on college campuses, and strife in Israel with the utmost sensitivity. As I mentioned above, this year has been a year of transition for not only the university, but for issues facing the broader Jewish community. Subsequently, our students have advocated about issues relating to Judaism and sexuality, domestic violence, and the place of women’s learning at Yeshiva University and in the modern Orthodox world beyond.
I can also take this final moment to reflect upon all the formidable challenges that this year has brought. Speaking with my counterparts at The Yeshiva University Commentator, we have agreed that it has been a difficult year to be a student journalist on our campuses. There was no shortage of high-pressure moments, where we wanted to uncover information about university-related developments, but due to the university being in this transitional state, doing our jobs and effectively communicating with the proper sources was often difficult and frustrating. This year required newfound determination, patience, and lessons on how to effectively communicate and maneuver through some of our surface limitations.
While I have had difficulty unearthing the news and communicating an unsettled period in our university, I have gratitude towards all of the students, faculty, and administers (yes, them too) for trying to help my staff do their primary job: keeping the student body informed.
I have tremendous respect for the student body, who during some of the more tumultuous periods of the year, have risen to the occasion and represented the needs of the students respectfully and productively. I believe that this is what our staff has accomplished this year as well. Yet, I feel this stark disparity between current students who want to do everything in their power to represent their needs and help sustain a university that they love and believe in, and the attitude of some alumni.
One alumnus said to me something that I think best demonstrated this disparity: “I see you are covering the news, but where is the dirt? It is your job, after all, to get the dirt on everything going on in the university.”
It is an attitude of always trying to find the “dirt” which will be most detrimental to this university. An in-depth coverage of university news is critical, and it has been our number one objective. Yes, there have been immense mistakes. Mistakes that The Observer has exposed publicly. But, finding the “dirt,” trying to spin a story negatively, seems counter-intuitive to everything that I have stood for this year, and against the vision I have imparted to my staff. A vision of integrity, high-standards, being headstrong, and always having the best interest of the students at heart.
But, as this is my final moment to reflect to all of you, I think it would be most worthwhile to tell all of you how much I have learned from both the successes and the challenges that have come hand in hand with the responsibility I have felt in this position.
I think this lesson of growth is best demonstrated in the concluding remarks I said at my final meeting with my fantastic and dedicated staff this past week.
During those final moments with my staff, I felt choked up. Not because I was sad that this incredible opportunity was coming to an end, but because of the gratitude and pride I felt for having this opportunity in the first place. I told my staff that what we did here, at The Yeshiva University Observer, was much more than the ordinary hard work that comes with student journalism and publishing a student publication. What we did here was utilizing talents and passions to cater to the diverse needs of the student body, and representing ourselves, as students, and our university with dignity.
I realized, at that moment, that this was not the final meeting. And this is not my final editorial. As an editorial in essence is a forum where passions and concerns are featured. I told my staff, that as we graduate, we should bring the talents and passions that was required in this endeavor to wherever life takes us, to whichever community that we end up, to every milestone in our lives. We have learned this year what it means to be on the forefront of issues that impact more than a university, but the Jewish community. We have learned how to be advocates. At the very least, I told my staff, if you do not feel comfortably being an advocate, be present.
We, as the graduating class of 2015, are both fortunate and unfortunate to live in a time where our university and the immediate and world-wide Jewish community are going through transitions. We each have the power to either be an advocate, be present in the moment, or simply sit on the sidelines.
So I turn to you in this closing, or, rather, opening moment: Are you going to take a seat on the bleachers?
Or, are you going to be an advocate, be present, intently observe, and make a difference.