I took my first online class ever in my senior year of high school. It was Spanish II, and I only went online because I couldn’t stand being in a class of really, really obnoxious freshman. They say sometimes, if you go into Capital High School late at night, you can still hear Ms. Van Stry yelling at the students rampaging around the classroom.
So I went online. And it was a mistake (though it would have been a bigger mistake to stay with all those freshies). The teacher remotely running the course responded to all questions with “read the assignment again,” and after a few weeks I gave up on logging in at all.
We had a vision for the paper we were hoping to accomplish before we even stepped into our roles.
Then the pandemic presented us with a new set of challenges, and we worried our plans would be curtailed maybe cut short. But we stuck with them anyway.
We set out to establish new projects that could outlive us and made sure there was diversity throughout the paper. Real diversity. Not the kind constrained to only one section or a tag.
And we did it, all thanks to our dedicated staff who amid online classes, second jobs, not to mention a pandemic had a visible passion for what they do.