Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

We Can Do Better Too

When it comes to issues that affect our community, campus media can be an essential tool to bring attention and pressure. However, when such bodies, including this independent editorial board, do not provide sufficient ways to resolve the issues others raise, we fail to fulfill our purpose as a body that prescribes policy prescriptions, causing the community and issues it raises to be let down. Most of our time is spent critiquing other institutions, but as the term of this editorial board comes to an end, we would like to reflect on where we can do better.

When the university announced that three additional staff members would be added to Counseling and Psychiatric Services, the editorial board responded by calling for even more action to support mental health on campus and wide structural reform. However, we did so without providing specific policy proposals beyond asking for a louder student voice on the issue and that more resources be allocated to CAPS. This kind of suggestion demonstrates that we only were only tenacious enough to identify the problem and stopped short of finding potential solutions.

If we are to critique the undeniably passionate efforts of students and administrators, we must supplement our found shortcomings with well-researched and feasible solutions. As our term as an editorial board ends, we hope the incoming board can accommodate greater detail into its calls to action.

Furthermore, all campus media can aid the work of this editorial board by launching investigative efforts into the questions raised by the community. To do this, student journalists must continue pushing university offices to be more transparent by exposing the issues that go on behind closed doors and by asking tough questions of our administrators. With these efforts, campus media can hold administrators more accountable.

Editorials are responsible for highlighting the central issues, failures and successes of a community, and it should seek to expose topics hidden underneath the surface. In the case of The Hoya’s editorial board, we have not fully lived up to the tasks required of us as members of campus media, and we will seek to bring more insight and nuance to issues in the future.

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