In our very first editorial of the semester, Zack and I reflected on our dreams for the Weather Vane:

“We want the Weather Vane to be home to more stories, more ideas, more questions from you. These pages (physical and digital) are a testament to the moments we live, breathe, and feel … This is an artifact, and an opportunity.”

We feel that this goal has been achieved, and we have you to thank. You have engaged with us and our stories, and we are so grateful that you have. 

Thank you for reading each new edition of the Weather Vane and for cultivating thoughtful conversation around the challenging topics we covered. We are grateful that you have taken an active part in what we published.

Thank you for sending in your contributions to collective pieces and Spotify playlist review calls. Thank you for engaging with us on our instagram page (@emuweathervane) and website, and encouraging us to maintain our digital presences. 

Thank you for sending us story ideas and tipping us off to big issues happening in our campus community and broader community. We appreciate your trust as we navigated them.

Thank you for telling us when we were wrong. We hold accuracy as a high priority, but acknowledge we are human (and as college students, often sleep-deprived). Thank you for holding us accountable, and for challenging us.

Thank you for your willingness to be interviewed and photographed. Thank you for submitting your photos when our photographers weren’t able to be present. Thank you for allowing and encouraging your stories to be told. 

Thank you for writing in your opinion pieces, and for doing your part to help us represent the issues most important to the EMU student body. 

In that first edition, we named that you, our readership, are “what makes the Weather Vane. Journalism does not exist in a vacuum. … You are wanted here.” 

Thank you for joining us in that space, for accepting our welcome and claiming the Weather Vane as a publication that is truly “by students, for students, the voice of the students.” 

Though we did not reach our goal of publishing multilingual work, we are thrilled to announce that this is because we have been approved to create “Global Voices,” a multilingual affiliate of the Weather Vane, next semester. This publication, funded by the Inclusive Excellence Grants, Office of DEI, EMU, aims to feature the stories of Intensive English Program students in their native languages to celebrate their linguistic experiences and the diversity we have developed at EMU. Stay tuned for more information next semester! If you have any questions or would like to get involved, please contact Zack and I at our respective EMU emails. 

As our co-editorship comes to an end, we want to reiterate our gratitude for your thoughts, your stories, and your trust. You are the Weather Vane, and we have appreciated the chance to serve you. 

Fondly,

Hannah and Zack