As another school year begins new students, as well as old, enroll and start populating the campus again – which is nice, because over the summer it’s like a ghost town.

It’s exciting to see The Memorial Union full of people hanging out, waiting for class, the Mabee Library’s long line for the printer and Chartwells’ interesting staff return to serve it’s customers. Every year there is something new to learn about WU, I wonder what it’s going to be this year.

Since I started at Washburn three years ago, much has changed on campus, and a large part of that is the growth of social media. I have witnessed Facebook and Twitter transform the way students communicate, interact and even do homework. Google Docs and the Cloud have opened up new opportunities for all branches of academia in so many ways we haven’t even begun to explore them all. To me, this is extremely exciting.

My goal with my new position on the paper is to integrate this print paper you are holding in your hands with the online washburnreview.org and our Facebook and Twitter pages.

“The number of people who claimed to have gotten news from an online source in the last 24 hours rose from 24% to 31% over the last decade,” according to a Mashable article by Lauren Indvik.

Those numbers aren’t as high as I originally thought they would be, but I continues reading and found out why. The article goes on to talk about how online sites have been adding to, rather than replacing traditional news. That is exactly what we plan to do.

There are so many more opportunities opened up online, and the team we have put together this year is going to be the one to get it done. We already have so many ideas we have been brainstorming and a few have already come to light. You will find some of this throughout this very issue of the Washburn Review.

We are also opening up our ears to your suggestions and criticisms, so please, look above and see our Twitter alias and/or find us on Facebook and give us some feedback. We always look to improve our content and want to make, you, the reader, happy. If you have an awesome idea for a story and think student media would be perfect to cover the story, let us know that too.

In addition to all that new stuff, you will still be able to find news stories, photo galleries and videos online, just like before.

So I guess my point is, I am looking forward to a lot this year, but I am really excited about this newspaper and making it the best it can be. We are going to bring you the best news we can and in the best way possible. Look forward to some exciting changes this year.