Over the past two years, we’ve all been forced to grow in some ways whether we liked it or not. Personally, I haven’t been a fan. 

We’ve had to hide from a pandemic while simultaneously trying to meet graduation requirements and hold the most difficult conversations with loved ones – about loss, division, and core beliefs. Before being thrown into the chaos of a public health crisis, I was already feeling pretty burnt out on growth, as I’m sure many other fresh college students were. 

While I’m grateful to not have entered my college career during the pandemic, I still feel grief for the pre-COVID-19 college experience taken from myself and my peers. We were sent home and subjected to Zoom learning after being newly immersed in college life. Like many of my friends, I considered taking a gap year. What could EMU possibly offer me while sorting out its own chaos? 

Over the past year, I’ve been pretty disappointed in a lot of EMU’s decisions, but there’s a reason I’m still here (other than being too far in already). Ever since enrolling here, I’ve admired EMU’s ability to recognize its own potential for growth. 

While administrators don’t always make the best decisions for the students, EMU has still cultivated an environment where many students, including myself, feel comfortable enough to critique the university. Students empower each other by raising their voices on issues that demand an audience. From the “Black Lives Matter” mural to the newly inclusive housing policies, faculty, staff, and students are putting in the footwork to grow EMU as a sustainable, welcoming community. 

We’re entering a new semester of classes, of problems, and hopefully, of unforeseen solutions. As EMU continues to hold itself accountable to righting our wrongs and promoting justice on campus, we need to remember that justice must extend to every corner of our community, including the Weather Vane.  The Weather Vane has been EMU’s student newspaper since 1939 and has progressed quite a bit over the decades. This semester our Co-Editors are Joseph Whetzel and myself. We want to encourage students to submit opinion pieces about problems on and off campus that aren’t getting enough attention. Your voice deserves to be heard, and this platform is designed for you, the student body. We reserve the right to edit content and do so mindfully. Submissions and inquiries can be sent to wvane@emu.edu, jessica.chisolm@emu.edu, or joseph.whetzel@emu.edu.