A Note from the Editor: On Telling Stories
Editor-in-Chief Katie Oglesby ’23 (Photo Eric Lippe/The Gettysburgian)
The Gettysburgian has been an integral part of my college career, so this final editor’s note is bittersweet for me. I am so grateful for my time here, for the friends I have made and the stories I have had the privilege to tell, and I am sad to see it end. But I am also grateful for the experience The Gettysburgian has given me that will help me pursue a career in journalism at a national level.
I have been a part of The Gettysburgian since orientation week my first-year, and was delighted with an opportunity to do my favorite thing: writing. I just didn’t realize then, sitting around a table in Glatfelter Lodge with people I would grow to become great friends and coworkers with, that joining this organization would be the best decision I made at Gettysburg. I hope that I have made The Gettysburgian as welcoming of a place as it was for me when I first joined.
The beauty of college journalism is the way we can tell the stories we hear students talking about on a daily basis. We have the unique opportunity of being close to our sources because we are them. We know what students are interested in, we hear faculty talk about issues in our classes, and we too feel the impact of the issues we write about. Our task is to deliver these issues as unbiased as possible, but also to serve the people we know and love on campus.
This magazine feels like an amalgamation of many of the issues we have been talking about around our table every week. We have spent so much time gauging how students feel and what they want to know. It is our hope that this issue gets to the heart of student concerns as we dive into the student and campus relationship with the Gettysburg Police Department, the way traditions have changed since the pandemic began and how students with dietary restrictions are impacted by the food choices in our dining centers. We hope to unveil the Board of Trustees for a student body who may not understand their role. We give our opinion on the distance between administration and students, and the lack of say we have in the future of our institution.
We also highlight the experiences of Ukrainian international students on campus, English Professor Rachele Salvini — an immigrant from Italy with a PhD from Oklahoma — and ask seniors to share what their time at Gettysburg has meant to them. We hope to highlight the multitude of experiences this community is host to.
I’m going to miss those weekly conversations in Plank 103, telling your story, but I know that the editorial board after me is up for the challenge of documenting tomorrow’s history. What an honor it has been serving you.
Katie Oglesby
Editor-in-Chief
The Gettysburgian
This article originally appeared on page 2 of the April 2023 edition of The Gettysburgian’s magazine.
