OPINION

Voice publications pause for adviser search

During the winter semester of 25, the Voice had a pop-up stand during publication day. Alice McGuire, who was then the Voice deputy editor, holds the most recent paper. Courtney Prielipp | The Washtenaw Voice

The Washtenaw Voice

This fall semester marks a season of change for the Voice team, and we have a few important announcements to share with our readers.

We are bidding farewell to our adviser, Lilly Kujawski. After nearly two years with us, she has stepped down from her position to prioritize her education. Kujawski provided us with invaluable guidance throughout what has been a bewildering time in journalism, and we will miss her. But we’re excited to see what she does next.

While we await the placement of a new adviser, the Voice will be pausing publications until further notice. But our team is still here, and we plan to be back on the stands again soon, stronger than ever.

Peter Leshkevich, dean of enrollment management and student experience, reassured our readers and the Voice staff in a statement provided via email.

“I want to personally thank our outgoing Coordinator, Lilly Kujawski, for the support she has given our student journalists at the Washtenaw Voice,” Leshkevich said. “As we start the search for the next Coordinator, we’re excited to find someone who will build on the legacy and foundation that Lilly and the Washtenaw Voice journalists have created. Publishing will take a short pause during this transition, but we will be working hard to bring the Voice back to stands soon.”

Why advisers matter

The Washtenaw Voice is crucial to the campus community and acts as a “communication vehicle for all WCC students,” per Board Policy 4080.

We are a professional news organization, which means we are entitled to the press freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. While we have editorial independence from the college, that freedom comes with great responsibility.

The adviser of the Voice plays a crucial role in our operations and is responsible for handling many of the behind-the-scenes details, such as managing expenses and paying contributors, recruiting staff, and handling the paperwork so that we can focus on reporting. When navigating questions about media law or ethical dilemmas, our adviser is our first resource, and so it is in the best interest of our team and the legacy of the paper to step back for now.

Looking forward

In the meantime, the Voice team hopes our campus community experiences the semester as one defined by unity, and that our readers will join us in looking forward to our return.

This semester and beyond, we want journalism to shape us with its commitment to fact-checking, verification and specificity. But we also want to shape journalism by putting our faith in love—the kind of love that assumes others are capable of love too, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.

We hope to serve our readers by putting our hearts into doing journalism for humans, using our full faculties to counter black and white thinking. Our goal is to once again inhabit a shared reality—one where facts and feelings play nice—because algorithms don’t get to define reality without human input.

With all this in mind, please be sure to check the newsstand regularly for our return.