Greetings from the opinion desk at The Badger Herald, and congratulations on your decision to attend the University of Wisconsin – you’ve made an excellent choice. Then again, we’re biased.

This is probably the first time you’ve picked up a copy of The Badger Herald, and probably your first glance at the opinion section. Let us give you an overview of what the opinion page is all about.

We know you have essentially unlimited access to a vast array of print and electronic publications, many of which feature op-eds and editorials on all sorts of topics at the local, national and international scale. And yet, only a handful of newspapers will weigh in on campus affairs, life in the City of Madison and Wisconsin politics as they pertain to you as a UW student. You are reading it right now.

Yes, UW has other publications. As the nation’s largest fully independent student newspaper, however, The Badger Herald is in a unique position to publish commentary on the issues that matter to you as a student, free of any of the conflicts of interest arising through association with, say, the university (just look at the Daily Cardinal). As such, here in the opinion section we consider it our responsibility to serve as an open forum for discussion of relevant issues directly affecting UW students.

We publish a couple different types of content. The bread and butter of this section are columns, written by regular writers. These include a wide variety of topics. We don’t have any hard-and-fast rules concerning topics, but we make an effort to keep things local, timely and relevant.

We also publish regular editorials, which are written by the Herald’s Editorial Board, a group of editors and invited guests from the community that discusses, debates and (usually) comes to a consensus on prominent issues in the news.

Finally, we try to publish as many letters from our readers as we can. If you would like to respond to a column or want to hold forth on an issue you feel strongly about, send us a letter. We’ll do everything we can to put it on the page.

This fall, we are actively seeking new writers. If you think you might be interested in writing for the opinion section, we encourage you to get in touch with us, either now or once you arrive in Madison.

Charles Godfrey is a senior majoring in math and physics and Joe Timmerman is a junior majoring in math and economics. They can be reached at [email protected].