Editor’s Note: This article originally ran in the August 2017 print edition of The Round Up which is out now. 

The last article of the last Round Up from last school year ended with an outlook to the future- a promise to students of what was to come this school year. However, we never fully gave a reason or our logic behind some of the changes that we implemented. Being the paper of record for this University, I wanted to take just a few sentences to go over what and how The Round Up will look this year and what we hope we provide to the students.

The most obvious change that will be seen is The Round Up will be cutting back it’s printing drastically – students can expect to hear from us in print as little as just one more time the rest of the semester. This will be the first year this entity does not produce something in print at least once a month in its 110-year old history. Given this, we know the expectations this kind of change will carry with it – and we are ready the challenge. A few reasons this was an avenue we believe the student voice should go in is that times have changed. Print is expensive, and as much readers as we had last year that we considered dedicated to picking us up, the situation is so many more read articles online. Our website last year alone garnered more traffic and interaction than the print did. Given that this University is at a very peculiar spot financially, we think, instead of being behind, let’s be one of the first college newspapers to make the jump a few years before everyone else does. That is our mission this year, that is our purpose.

Perhaps the best part of it all is this will all better serve and inform the students. Now, instead of having to bend down and grab an issue out of one of our bins on campus, you can see one of our articles as you scroll on your timelines on social media and hopefully while you are on the site, you will find other articles that interest you.

We are again keeping it local, you can find almost 100 percent NMSU and Las Cruces news with us. We also want to live up to being the voice of the students this year more than ever, which is why we will welcome more news tips, breaking stories and feedback from students than ever before. It is our hope that The Round Up is transformed this year and put on a trajectory that the many students and staff that will come after us can essentially pick up where we leave o and utilize the online aspect in a journalistically sound and student orientated way. The time is now for change, and we could not be any more excited for what is in store for you and many others on nmsuroundup.com . We will see next time online.