As the title of this piece states, welcome to Georgia State.

For our regular readers wondering why I’m starting this particular piece with this particular introduction, I’ll explain – this issue of The Signal is our first-ever summer issue, specifically designed for our incoming student population via Incept: New Student Orientation.

Here at The Signal, we’ve made a number of changes to our publications in the past year. We’ve tightened up the format of both The Signal and the Urbanite, our (now monthly) entertainment magazine. We’ve also changed the scope of our publications in the past year by tightening up coverage in The Signal to more campus-related fare, and broadening the content of the Urbanite to arts, entertainment, fashion, politics, pop culture, and more.

Creating this particular issue has proven to be an interesting challenge all on its own, though. At press time, we’re in between staff listings – the majority of the content filling the pages of this particular issue was crafted by the writers and editors of the 2008-2009 year, but the issue itself is the first marked issue of the 2009-2010 year, and the staff list is listed accordingly.

The goal of this particular issue is rather simple: we’re updating our content with some special newsworthy topics that are relevant that have occurred since our last spring issue (the cover story on baseball, for example – and my apologies to any sports aficionados out there, but I am likely the last person to know anything about sports, so that particular article was certainly nothing to write home about). We’re also pulling some of our most relevant pieces from the last few months of the spring semester and presenting them to the approximately 3,000 students who will come through Incept this summer.

Finally, on top of everything else, we’re taking this opportunity to redevelop our format for The Signal. While we were proud of many of the changes we made to The Signal this past year, there were some things we felt could use a marked improvement. The printed newspaper is the first to undergo redevelopment. The Urbanite will undergo some more slight changes before launching this fall once again in earnest, and our website, www.gsusignal.com, will be undergoing a massive overhaul between now and the beginning of the new school year.

These aren’t the only changes we’re making. As part of a response to criticisms about The Signal in recent years in regards to investigative journalism that was at times spotty at best, we suspended the practice for the past year, choosing instead to work on tightening content. While, again, this was a necessary decision to make in terms of the quality control of this publication, this was also a difficult decision to make. After a year, we as an editorial team have decided to reenter the field of investigative journalism. This change, though, may take on some new forms. Start looking for web-exclusive articles that will feature more in-depth analysis on topics covered briefly in our weekly newspaper.

We’re also adding a portion of our arts and entertainment publication back into The Signal on a weekly basis. When it began, the Urbanite was a weekly magazine in newspaper form that was essentially an addendum to the weekly Signal publication. Over the years, due to changes in publication form, the Urbanite has shifted to a biweekly publication, and ultimately to a monthly magazine that can potentially compete with other local area magazines in both style and content. While we’re proud of the changes we’ve made and are making to the Urbanite, we do want to provide some content that is more time-relevant. In the fall, look for weekly reviews of new albums and films, plus some additional content. This time, we’ve included a few pieces from our much-delayed current Urbanite issue, as well as a look at previous and current American Idol winners and runners-up.

We still have a few months to go before we officially launch the new school year, and we still want to know what you want. Please visit our website or email our staff members (myself obviously included) if you have suggestions or ideas that you want to see implemented in any of our publications. We look forward to hearing from you.

And again, to our new classmates – welcome to Georgia State.

Sincerely,

Elijah Sarkesian
Editor in Chief
The Signal/Urbanite