Hello readers.

I thought I’d take this time to write to you and fill you in on some of the changes I hope you’ll notice in The Shield as the year progresses.

As a student-run paper, The Shield is a safe zone for potential journalists to practice their craft, and while we do our best to make as few mistakes as possible, this is the time for us to make mistakes and learn from them rather than gaining no experience and making said mistakes in the “real world.”

This year at The Shield, we plan to have something new on the website, www.usishield.com, every day. I think you’ll also find the website to be more interactive, with more polls and slideshows to utilize.

The Shield staff is also working to improve writing skills internally. Every staff member has, or soon will be, going through a series of training sessions to strengthen the quality of their writing and by extension, the quality of the articles within the paper.

Writing for The Shield is a great way to get involved on campus. Writers don’t even have to be communications majors. In fact, I welcome writers from all different majors and backgrounds to get involved with the paper.

The wider the variety of voices, the more of you we reach. The editorial staff this year is a fantastic group of young writers. I am confident in their abilities within their specific sections, and I believe that this will be a year of great change for The Shield.

I encourage you, the readers, to get involved by writing to us and giving your opinions on our work. I also would ask that you continually check our website and take part in our polls and other interactive features.

Let us know what you think we do well, as well as the things we don’t. The Shield’s sole purpose is to inform and serve the community of USI. The best way for us to do that is to get feedback from readers.

I look forward to serving this community and leading The Shield staff into another fantastic year here at USI.