Gra/Lay

HAUNTED DIRT: SELLING BELCHERTOWN'S BROKEN DREAM

Narrative Nonfiction Assignment

Tucked in the bucolic Western Massachusetts landscape, just south of Belchertown center, is a sprawling campus of graffitied brick buildings and white cottages. An administration building leers over a gravel parking lot on the property’s outer edge with an air of importance. A dormitory where well-meaning attendants once chemically sedated disabled residents has lost its fire escape to rust and wind. Trespassers brave enough to climb the dark, glass-strewn staircase of the former men’s ward are rewarded with access to a rain-warped rooftop with a westward view of the Mount Holyoke Range State Park. 

LINDSEY MCGINNIS: OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE ROLE OF STUDENT JOURNALISTS

Daily Hampshire Gazette (August 13, 2018)

Last month, I read about Zoya Azhar’s experience running the opinions section of Smith’s student newspaper, The Sophian, and how the paper has struggled with low readership and an overall lack of writers.

In some ways, I sympathize. Having just finished my tenure as the editor-in-chief of the Mount Holyoke News, I know firsthand what it’s like to run an independent college newspaper.