One of the first things I did after getting back from break was to create a reader survey for The Pioneer. As an organization, I believe The Pio should always be responsive to the students, staff, faulty, parents and alumni who read our paper and view our website. Many of the suggestions made by our readers are in line with my longer-term goals for the paper, and I’d like to take a minute to tell you where The Pio will be going this semester.

Many of you expressed a desire for the paper to do more coverage of local, national and world news. While our core mission will always be news that happens on campus, we’ve exploring several ways to expand our news coverage without compromising this goal. Starting this week, we’ll be posting a weekly news recap on our website on Monday morning which summarizes the top national news of the week, with links to more in-depth coverage for readers who are interested. We’re also introducing news briefs in print, where we’ll be able to summarize community issues while maintaining our focus on campus news. Our website will have more blogs this semester, on topics ranging from song lyric analysis to national sports, and we’re working hard to provide more videos of campus events.

These are just a few of our ideas for the semester, but we’re always looking for more ways to improve. If you’ve got a comment, suggestion or criticism, we’d love to hear it––just drop us a line at [email protected], or look for the link to our anonymous suggestion box that we email out to students every Friday. And if you want to talk to me personally, just ask––I’m usually in my office, and I’d love to hear your ideas.