There is one thing that you will hopefully discover when you pick up The Virginia Statesman… and that is that all of the bylines are names of Virginia State University students. Some might wonder why is that an important part of who makes up the staff?

During your four years as an undergraduate student you are developing your voice. Whether you are a business major or a mass communications major, you are growing into who you want to be as an adult. As a university community, it’s important to have a space that is safe to offer up your unique viewpoint. Having student writers is essential to telling the student point-of-view.

We hope that you feel this newspaper is a place where you can find many points of view. It’s our job to represent the student voice, but also hear from administration and the faculty here on campus.

Virginia State University prides itself in offering you a unique experience to grow and be supported in these post-high school years of your life.

Part of that support is a fostering a publication that allows you to voice your side of the story.

You many ask, how does one do that? There are several ways.

First, you can write an email to our Gmail and title it “Letters To The Editor.” As stated in our policy right next to this editorial, “Contributions are welcome.”

Secondly, you can post a comment under any of our stories on our website: TheVirginiaStatesman.com

Lastly, you can comment on our social media feeds. We are on Facebook, X, and Instagram.

A lot has happened since we have returned to campus. Some of it we have covered in this issue and some of it we have not. If you feel that we missed covering something that you want to hear about, please let us know. Or even better, come to our staff meetings on Tuesday’s in the MPC Room 1417 at 2 p.m. to tell us in person.

There is so much that goes into putting this paper together and the more students we have contributing to the process, the better this paper will become.