Dear Readers,

Welcome back to another edition of The Comenian!

We are back with one of our biggest editions yet and, along with that, this refresh marks the largest single month that we have had since we started publishing online.

I’m also going to shamelessly self-promote for a bit because our last edition on Sept. 15 marked my 100th article written for The Comenian! I really do love writing for this paper (if you couldn’t tell) and doing this just brings an enormous sense of fulfillment. I just love the feeling of finishing that last article and uploading the new editions at 2 am. 

None of this would be possible without our world-class staff who are so amazingly talented and dedicated. I can’t thank them enough for all the hard work they pour into this paper. I feel like I leave every single meeting with the biggest smile on my face because of how welcoming and attentive our staff is. I’d also like to thank our editors for the bang-up job they’ve been doing lately. With our increase in articles and duties for the paper, they have just been killing it. I seriously can’t do this without them; they are all fantastic.

Last semester, we launched our new regular series, titled “Praise of the Week,” and so far the responses have been awesome. We started discussing having a positive version of our “Rant of the Week” series last semester because we felt it necessary that if we are going to be negative about things happening at Moravian, then we also have to be positive.

I didn’t want to just be the paper that tore everyone down. I wanted to show that we can also have a definite positive outlook and impact on our community and I am so glad that worked. To be frank, it’s easy to be negative and cynical; it’s easy to find all the problems with something. What’s harder is looking for the positive aspects of campus life. There are so many people on campus who deserve to be recognized for all their hard work. 

Before I sign off, Liz Kameen has a few words to say about the recent vandalism that occurred to the Spectrum bench:

Spectrum’s club bench was vandalized a few weeks ago by an atrocious individual. However, this is not Moravian’s only history of hatred on this campus. 

Starting in 2017, a series of swastikas were carved in the HILL elevator, PPHAC desks, and the Hall of Science. In addition, in 2017, a student’s artwork was defaced with racial slurs while being displayed on South Campus. In The Comenian, a guest reporter referred to the administration’s response to these events as the “Moravian Bubble.” It’s unfortunate to see that within six years of those incidents, not much has changed. 

In many of these situations, the conflict is brief and the issue must seem like it is resolved as quickly as possible while the real issue is left to fester quietly in the background. These injustices are often not addressed, and when they are, it has become such a routine practice that it is either unknown or not cared about.

But, at least in the situation of the swastikas, there was some sort of administration communication to the students. I’ll be frank and say I was upset that there was no mass communication sent out on behalf of all queer students. Queer students not even knowing about a vandalization on campus done by someone who does not respect their identity is horrific within itself. 

Queer students deserve to know when their safety is at risk. They deserve to know when someone is openly committing acts of hatred against them on this campus. With no campus-wide communication, I fear this hate crime will be brushed under the rug. As Moravian students, we cannot let that happen.

Before we sign off: if you’re interested in joining The Comenian please join us at our meetings, which take place every Wednesday at 5 p.m. in Zinzendorf Hall, room 100. 

We are looking for new writers, photographers, videographers, graphic designers, and more, so if any of those interest you be sure to stop by or email me at [email protected]. 

The Comenian supports a wide range of content,  if you want to interview students around campus, you can. If you want to make video essays you can. If you want to make short comics, you can. Whether you want to write about news, politics, music, movies, sports, video games, food, history, or anything else, I guarantee you will have a place here.

Also, if you would like to be notified by email whenever we publish a new edition of the paper – either the online or print version – please send your address to [email protected]. We’ll add you to our email list!

Thank you for reading our first refresh of the semester. I hope you come back soon as we continue to publish new content every other week.

Your editors,

AJ and Liz