Self Assessment:
Mid Term Review of The Harbus
As an editorial board, we promised our readers a lot in our first issue in January. With the academic year drawing to a close, and finding ourselves half way through our term of office, we would like to take the opportunity to review how we are doing on those promises.
The newspaper that you hold in your hand underwent a radical design change in January. The paper was reorganized into distinct sections, each section reflecting a different aspect of our lives as students at HBS. Overall, we believe that this design change greatly improved the readers’ experience with our product.
Our new Viewpoints section was created to emphasize that “debate should not stop in Aldrich.” This section has been a resounding success. In the past five months, members of the HBS community have expressed opinions on issues as diverse as recruiting failures at HBS, RC workload, and the role of African Americans in American history.
The News and Campus Affairs section has continued to deliver objective reporting on the major issues affecting members of the HBS community. The state of the recruiting environment, and the repercussions of September 11 terrorist attacks have never been far away from our front pages. In addition, we have covered the key speakers that come to campus, major changes to the MBA experience, and news of current students’ and alumni successes.
Our Lifestyle section is designed to shed light on the diversity of the HBS community, and to elucidate how our lifestyles reflect our attitudes and preferences. To date, and in separate articles, we’ve covered what it’s like to be pregnant, gay, African-American, single, or Mormon at HBS. We hope that readers and contributing writers will continue to use this section to “hear the stories of our classmates … to build deeper relationships and achieve a better understanding of one another.”
Section Mayhem is a very popular part of the paper. We realize the importance of this section to the readers and are firmly committed to its prominent placing. We’d also like to thank the section Harbus representatives for their continued support this semester.
We started off in January by warning that “humor isn’t easy.” That being said, with features like Sky Deck, Goldie, Case Rip Cord, and Corporate Inspirations, we think we’ve made it look easy.
Our Arts & Entertainment (A&E) section was established to “expose the HBS community to a wide variety of Boston-area restaurants, pubs, clubs, music and sports events.” With our regular Beer Column, film and concert reviews, we’ve delivered on this promise.
Our Sports section has continued to provide coverage of the sporting world from a HBS perspective. From HBS Rugby, to IM basketball, to Section Olympics, we’ve been there bringing you the results as they happen.
Our education at HBS constantly places us in situations in which tough choices need to be made. As an editorial board, we’ve been there too. The Harbus has covered controversial topics this semester, such as the Sharon versus Arafat debate, the marketing techniques of the Mobius forum, and the uncertainty over the funding for Summer Enterprise Social Fellowship recipients.
Covering topics like these emphasizes how seriously we take our role as an independent voice for student concerns. The Harbus is an environment where, simultaneously, the big picture implications of articles are debated, and a setting in which adjectives are argued over.
As an Editorial Board, we feel we’ve more than delivered on our promises to you, our reader, this semester, and we commit ourselves to that promise again next year. We want to hear your opinion on the matter – either in agreement or otherwise.
To our Class of 2002 readers, we wish you the very best in your future endeavors, and we hope that you will use The Harbus to stay in touch with what is going on at your alma mater. We wish the Class of 2003 a happy and fulfilling summer, and look forward to picking up the driving sissues of our experience together in September.
The Harbus Editorial Board
Damien Coady (NJ)
Zibby Schwarzman (NB)
Hashem Montasser (NH)
Michelle Shell (ND)
Matt Stovcsik (NI)
Daniel Pullin (NA)
Derek Mendez (ND)
