As first-year students arrive to the Syracuse University campus with bulging storage boxes and tightly packed suitcases, the reality of opportunity to meet a community full of new faces, floormates and professors’ names becomes clear. And in the rush to get into the swing of student life, we wanted to introduce our editorial board, too.

Made up of the editor in chief, the managing editor and the head editor from each newspaper section of The Daily Orange, The D.O. Editorial Board serves as the voice of our nearly 113-year-old institution, one that has been independent of the university since 1971. The editorial board aims to contribute the perspectives of students to discussions that concern Syracuse University and the greater Syracuse community and are often centered on policies, events and administrative actions.

As a board, we value full transparency in the ways in which our daily editorial comes together. Our topics are selected by the editorial editor on the basis of news value and relevance to life as an SU student. Once a general consensus is reached during the nightly roundtable, the editorial editor condenses the primary points of the conversation into the edit board, though they do not offer their own opinion during these discussions.

Because we are financially independent from the university, our board has the opportunity to hold the SU administration accountable for discrepancies in policies and programming. It also gives us the freedom to be critical and talk about tough issues. And as an institution that is able to contribute an SU student perspective on campus and regional news, The D.O. is always open to considering topical pitches from the university body and local community.

Through these editorials we hope to spark a dialogue and communicate varying perspectives to the campus community in a way that is digestible. Of course, it’s up to the reader to decide whether or not the argument is valid. But regardless of whether D.O. readers agree with the stance of the board on any given topic, we encourage our readers to express their own thoughts through letters to the editor.
The central idea of the editorial board is to unite student body, Syracuse community and newspaper staff in discussion. In the News, Sports and Pulp sections, The D.O. is rightfully bound to objectivity. But the editorial board, which is housed under the Opinion section, is the one place where the staff behind the newspaper can take a stance on pertinent issues with an emphasis on accountability.

It’s about making sense of the news to give commendation where it’s due and to make sure that institutional lapses don’t fall through the cracks. And it’s for this reason that we encourage freshmen and other new students to challenge us, engage with us and acknowledge that the editorial board does not end these discussions, but rather nurtures them.