by John Wong
This is the final issue of the Moment before you head back to home. So enjoy! There have been a number of changes in the Moment since our first issue, deemed simply as the Orientation Issue. In that issue, we tried to ease the transitions of first-years into the Columbia community by offering a few words of advice our experience.
There has also been a number of changes to our outlook since our first issue. These changes are mostly noticed by our change in the layout of the issue. We have been commended for our general fresh layout style when we changed our mastheads, headlines, etc. New ideas are constantly put forth by the many newer contributors of the Moment, which in turn gave me the enthusiasm to add to the integrity of the paper. A new style raises certain interests among the community to see "what's new" in our paper -- and only good things can result from this.
At the same time, we constantly try to re-establish the traditional views of the paper itself. The New York Times itself has never changed its motto of "All the News that is Fit to Print". The phrase has been around so long that it now seems like a cliche; but the phrase does bring out the primary motivations for producing a paper in the first place. There must be a common ideal to which a newspaper must abide by at all times -- even though the presentation of the product would continually be changed.
As the sole science and engineering newspaper on campus, I feel that we must abide our primary motivation to bring to the Columbia campus a source of information, as well as a voice for the science and engineering community. Each one of our articles is a human voice trying to articulate a certain aspect of life in Columbia, whether it be in student life or faculty research. And each voice needs to be responded to. Therefore, it is important for more people to participate in the paper, whether by writing articles to expressive their views, responding to certain articles, or simply engaging in a conversation with a friend about a topic discussed in the paper.
Meanwhile, we at the Moment will try to open our eyes and ears to the goings on in the science and engineering community to start a conversation in our neighborhood. But we are only a few voices in such a diverse setting. I encourage all of you to participate in this exciting, organic, part of our democratic process.