Letter from the Editors: Hello, It's Good to See You Again!
Hello Reedies, and welcome to yet another version of Reed College’s Academia Simulator — updated with a lively campus, better real-life graphics of fellow peers, and new skins complete with P-dox bevs and masks.
This semester, the Quest is excited to continue with our mission of sharing knowledge, connecting Reedies here on campus and afar, and elevating student voices. We will continue to share resources and news with students regarding health, safety, academic support, and campus life.
“Not all stories are easy, but often the hardest are the most necessary.”
Through printing the news, we want to support students and create community. We share stories, carve space, and spotlight individuals working to make our lives and futures better. We gather quotes and facts and aim to create a fair and accurate representation of situations on campus and off as they relate to and touch the lives of the Reed community everywhere. Through journalism we can uplift student voices, speak to power, and etch our stories into Reed’s often-fading institutional memory. In short, we pride ourselves as storytellers.
However, we understand that news articles are not the best medium for every story. Not every story can be researched, interviewed, fact-checked and published. Some stories must be told through word of mouth, shared through social media, and spread through a community. These stories are not easy or simple to share. They live through the resilience of survivors. As we know, Reed is a place where it is difficult to maintain institutional knowledge. Scores of students pass through our halls, bringing accumulated knowledge from previous Reedies to the next, but so much is lost as they graduate. Our values are not always best preserved in handbooks and bylaws, but rather through graffiti walls and grapevines. Sometimes, the best way to know who to trust is through the whispers, not the shouts. In the end, the Quest can’t always report on these stories the way we want to, but we stand with survivors. Not all stories are easy, but often the hardest are the most necessary.
In order to best reflect the thoughts and viewpoints of our diverse student body, we encourage Reedies to contribute to the Quest. We want to give a home to all types of stories, whether they be news and investigative pieces, or more personal narratives like opinions or letters to the editors. This semester, we’ve returned to our pre-COVID contributors’ meeting time of 7 p.m., but for the time being we’re still online. Feel free to pop in to our Zoom meetings, say hi, learn more about what we do and how to contribute, and maybe even sign up to write an article. No experience is necessary to write for us; in fact, we love helping new writers find their footing and grow as journalists. We also want to encourage people to write more Letters to the Editors. You don’t need to have a 1000 word essay to get published in the Quest. Whether you write a couple pages or a couple sentences, your thoughts can make a great addition to our publication. Our editing nights continue to start on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. and last into the wee hours of the morning. We’d love for you to stop in and see how the proverbial Quest sausage gets made.
If you want to submit a Letter to the Editors or a quote for Overheard at Reed, you can find links for those forms on our website, reedquest.org. To stay updated on campus news, follow us on Instagram and Twitter @reedquest. Finally, we’re always available by email. Feel free to email quest@reed.edu or any of us individually if you have any questions. We’re so excited to share another year of dedicated journalism with you all!
The Fall 2021 Editorial Board
Katherine Draves ‘22, Albert Kerelis ‘24, Clarissa Lam ‘23, Wani Pandey ‘23, and Betsy Wight ‘23