Dear Readers,
The summer sun sets over a loving, lively Tribune Team group chat. The fall approaches. Yes, we will set our lands in order. Looking through, our team looks largely the same as we left it last spring, but we must acknowledge the notable exception of a small yet ferocious host of graduated seniors.
Sam, Trent, João, Brooke, Asher…now we editors know we’ve got a heart, because it’s breaking. And Drew, we think we’ll miss you most of all. Are we ready now? No, but we must move on. There’s no place like Medford…there’s no place like Medford…there’s no place like Medford…
And we’re back. The Tufts Tribune editorial team is pleased to begin another academic year in service of our school community. A cadre of juniors will lead the Tribune this fall. Stanley Spence takes the editorial helm as Editor-In-Chief, a longtime Tribune contributor and editor, not to mention a man with experience in a “fine press.” Nonetheless, he would be lost without his partner Niall Reynolds, the new reigning Managing Editor and a prolifically published writer, speaker, and leader. Alexandra Erlij, known to the closest of confidants and nearest of family as Alix, will assume the duties of Copy Editor. She certainly has shoes to fill, but her experience managing the Marlborough School Ultraviolet Newspaper should assuage the fear of any who knew and trusted Pagliacci, a Copy Editor of years past. Rounding out the team is Ava Martin, who has already begun to catch the many blind spots of the leadership as Staff Editor. Her editorial roles span the campus and her past, cropping up in policy think tanks and research journals of her own creation.
Finally, we would be remiss not to mention our President and the only Tribune founder not to have walked the stage this past May. Whitney Critchfield runs things. There is little we could do without her, and our thanks for her diligence and leadership are endless.
Our tenets have not changed since the spring, and our conviction in them is only strengthened as we observe changes in contemporary American life. The freedom of speech is foremost of these tenets, a value that has underpinned and reinforced every other freedom afforded to the people of the modern world. Championed by our founding thinkers, enshrined in our founding documents, free speech in American political life has been periodically tested. So far, it has held firm. We seek to do our modest part to maintain that line. Along with the freedom of speech come complementary ideals that the Tribune believes to support our central mission. Namely, we work to foster ideological diversity, an open forum, and healthy dialogue. Tertiary within our value set is communication. We hold the position that good writing and clear formulation of ideas is crucial to the development of discourse.
In universities today, that discourse is threatened. The Tribune was founded to combat a lack of diversity of viewpoint, and in the time since, the chilling and the curtailment of speech have proliferated at the institutional level. While we may not have the power from where we stand to frustrate these efforts, our role as a free and unbiased source of press can cultivate an open forum among the people. As the Roman tribune was a mouthpiece for the public, we hope this year to voice all that otherwise would be drowned out by the strong hand of authority. To restate our founding letter: “The Tufts Tribune takes no institutional positions besides our support of free speech and commitment to unbiased reporting.”
In our founding academic year of 2024-2025, the Tribune stood by its mission. Beginning with just four members, we ended the year with a staff of more than 30, and we platformed viewpoints regardless of political affiliation or ideological leaning. We believe that this is existential to the reification of an American, democratic way of life. If you feel as strongly as we do, we encourage you to be in touch. Our doors will always be open to the mission-aligned, no matter how else you identify yourself.
Until then, we will continue to work as best as we can. Thank you to everyone who has helped launch this magazine, and thank you to everyone who supports it continuously. This project is far bigger than the editorial team, the Tribune team, or the Tufts community, and you are all evidence of that.
Sincerely,
The Tufts Tribune Editorial Team