Editorial: First Writes of the 138th Board

EXECUTIVEAs the 138th Executive Board, we, Editor-in-Chief Philip Kuhn, and Managing Editors Alan Liu and Hannah Piette, have a steadfast mission to deliver to our wide-reaching community meaningful, relevant and quality content every week. We, the Fourth Estate, will not only inform, but empower others as a voice—a tool for change. As the definitive historical record of the Academy, it is our duty to relay, truthfully and thoroughly, campus happenings to present and future readership. We will work closely with new and developing reporters, aspiring to inspire in them the same love and passion for journalism held by us.NEWSThe Exonian’s News section, now in its 138th iteration, presents us with a long-esteemed legacy of high quality, breaking news coverage that we aspire to continue and further in the pursuit of journalistic excellence and boundary-pushing reporting. We were the first news section on the Eastern seaboard to cover JFK’s assassination in 1963, and we have covered movements from on-campus resistance to the Vietnam War in the ’60s to marijuana legalization in 2011 to sexual assault in 2015. We the new leadership: Joonho Jo, Melissa Lu and Henrietta Reily, will strive to transmit the pulse of our community to curious students, administrators and staff members. Serving both as whistleblowers and critics, we will report with integrity, quality and passion all newsworthy, challenging topics as soon as they arise. As we enter the year of our editorship, we look forward to brief our readers on the continuing transformation of our community.OPINIONSAs acceding Opinions editors, we come to manage a medium that has historically been graced by writers’ outrage turned writers’ resolution. Our editorship will remain at the service of this custom.Some may ask what distinguishes Opinions from other activist platforms. The distinction is singular: a commitment to intellectualism. There are groups that espouse good intentions to excuse academic negligence, and prefer will to reality. On the contrary, Opinions emphasizes logic and reason so that we may better understand the humanity these tenets have so far founded. And by this token, Opinions remains receptive to intellectual argumentation that seeks to revise our current state of humanity. These are initiatives that ought to be considered, not shunned.To bolster this mission, Opinions hereon features board editorials that will comment on  particular issues concerning our various communities. In addition, we will publish letters to the editor, sourced from and written by you, the readership. Our ultimate hope is to blur the line between reader and writer, and to challenge all to meditate further on not only their own views, but those of their neighbors as well. To this end we pledge ourselves.LIFEAsk most Exonians what makes Exeter special, and they will say “the people.” With this in mind, the Life section serves as a page by the people and for the people—the facets of our time here that only we see, hear and appreciate. Newspapers act as a weekly mirror in which we see the present interests of a place and its people. The Exeter Life Section hopes to capture the essence of our lives here in print—the remarkable faces, the features and the formals that defined the Academy in 2016.SPORTSAs the Sports editors of the 138th board, we hope to support Exeter’s 33 varsity teams by reporting on their successes and hardships each season. From football to cross country, hockey to tennis, our section intends to shine light on the hard work and dedication of Exeter’s student-athletes by providing Exonians with updates on their favorite teams.HUMOR Exonians can laugh, but whether Humor causes that laughter is not our problem. Elizabeth just kind of wandered into the office and became most qualified. Majestic is the brainchild of all the bad jokes your teachers tell. RC. During the whimsical, fanciful reign of 137, Will, Audrey and Kevin (#wak) maintained a loving relationship amongst themselves. We will not carry on that tradition. Thanks for reading and like us on Facebook.