By Molly Atchison | Editor-in-Chief

Dear Baylor Bears,

Welcome back! I’m sure you have enjoyed being off on adventures, and, if you’re like me, I’m sure you’re equally excited to come back to our beautiful Baylor home. Going into the last semester of my senior year, I am beginning to feel nostalgic, remembering my time at Baylor and my time working at the Baylor Lariat. Baylor has blessed me with endless opportunities, and I sincerely hope it has and will continue to do so for all of you.

Now that we’re “back in the Wack,” I am thrilled to continue the progress we made last semester in increasing our digital content flow. I am ready for you all to experience our two brand-new apps that we launched last semester: Lariat Alive! and the Lariat News app. I hope that you all utilize these tools we offer, whether you’ve been a long-time reader, or you’re just discovering us now. Whatever level of interaction you’ve had with our news outlet, know that we are here for you. We strive to bring you the most factual, important and interesting news to help you understand your university and your student body better.

In my search to find some purpose and planning in 2019, I have decided to embark on a happiness journey. Yes, it sounds cheesy, but to me, calling it a happiness journey makes so much more sense than simply setting new year’s resolutions. It is about setting year-long goals with specific check-in points, so that I can follow through and actually reach my goals. It’s also about making sure the goals I set in the beginning of 2019 are still going to matter to me by the end. Asking myself “What makes me happy?” or “How can I be happier?” was a wonderful place to start.

In the same way, we are setting out on a journey at the Lariat this semester. Our goals for this semester include increasing our visibility on campus, from passing out papers to setting up booths in the Bill Daniel Student Center and working to increase awareness for our news app and Lariat Alive! features. It also means interacting with our audiences more on social media, tweeting at you, featuring you on our Instagram story and constantly posting the most interesting and exciting news on our Facebook page. We hope that through these branches of the internet, we will be able to learn more about our audience and what matters to you.

We at the Lariat want to meet you, get to know you and really understand our audience and your voices. We encourage students, faculty and staff to reach out to us, but we understand that without us reaching out to you, we are not doing everything we can to make the voices of our readership heard.

Part of the Lariat’s journey is also to encourage you, the student body, staff and alumni, to be active news media consumers. With so many voices out there for you to listen to, we encourage you to be discerning about what news you’re taking in, and what you believe to be authoritative sources of news. The Lariat staff is constantly working to be an accurate, unbiased source of news, and we hope that you choose us as an authoritative source of Baylor news.

Those are our goals for the Lariat’s spring 2019 journey. So, Baylor Bears, What journey will you embark on this semester? Whatever the answer may be, know that the Lariat will be right there, supporting you all and bringing you the latest news on all media platforms.

Good luck,and have a wonderful spring semester!

Molly Atchison, Editor-in-Chief