Dear GVSU community, 

For more than 50 years, the Lanthorn has been employing students at Grand Valley State University to provide the campus community with accurate and focused news. Since the inaugural issue in 1963, the Lanthorn has made it a priority to cover diverse issues, views and community interest, and this semester was no different. We’ve covered passionate protests and counter-protests, community celebrations and highlighted the amazing students, faculty and staff at this university.

This semester, we have worked hard to produce collaborative, digital content and produce work that accurately reflects GVSU. We started live streaming big events (like the student senate sexual assault town hall meeting and the Planned Parenthood protests downtown) as we strove to implement more multimedia elements in our stories. We continued covering the unfolding sexual assault awareness campaigns happening on campus in response to the high number of sexual assaults this past year. We reported on the “It’s on Us” campaign, the new street lights on 48th Avenue and GVSU’s work to test and improve the campus climate.

We reported on other GVSU administration happenings, too, to keep students, faculty and staff informed and to hold administration accountable. We wrote about changes to the “free speech zone” policies to update GVSU community members on their right to freely express themselves on campus, and we broke the news about several events around campus. 

Student life on campus has been thriving with more and more clubs and student organizations added each year. This semester, we covered hard hitting Greek Life events such as “ATO Walks Hard” and the IFC bid day(s), which included the newly established fraternity Fiji. New student organizations such as the drag club or Fleece and Thank You hosted events on campus to show Laker pride and connect to the community. Anything student related Laker Life covered and in the future, we are always looking to improve our connections to the student community. 

The GVSU community is filled with creativity and artistic expression. This semester, we covered some of the exciting events that recognized student and faculty talents both on and off campus, including: the annual Shakespeare Festival, the 2017 Grand Rapids Film Festival, GVSU’s first ever drag exhibition and series of events, the large-scale theater production of Helen and several senior art exhibitions showcased in the GVSU galleries. We hope to continue to recognize and celebrate the diverse range of talent in the GVSU community and the greater Grand Rapids community. 

It was an honor to serve the university as part of the Lanthorn staff of 2017. Keep hosting events, speaking up for what you believe in and working to improve campus every year, and we promise to keep reporting on it.