Welcome, everyone, to a new semester at The Badger Herald Editorial Page. As the editorial page editors, we’d like to take a few moments to introduce ourselves and lay out our vision for the page over the coming months.

First, a little bit about the two of us: Charles, the editorial page editor, is a junior majoring in math and physics. He is now in his fifth semester at the Herald, including last semester as editorial page content editor; Joe, the editorial page content editor, is a sophomore majoring in math and economics. He is starting the fourth semester of his stint with the editorial page. If you’re looking to read political commentary from a couple of math nerds, this is definitely the page for you. Feel free to check out our individual archives online if you’re interested in finding out more about us – with more than 80 columns written between the two of us, we hope you’ll find something of interest.

As the world becomes increasingly digitally focused, we plan to keep adding more online opinion content, while still remaining dedicated to our print edition.

In terms of digital content, we’d like to add more interactivity to the section. For example, we hope to host live chats online between the editorial board and the community. Along with this, we plan on liveblogging important events this semester. We also want to take advantage of the versatility webpages offer to provide a more interactive, content-rich multimedia experience with relevant photos, video and audio.

We’re also hoping to diversify the content on the page itself. Traditionally, we run three types of writing: editorials, columns and letters. Editorials refer to opinion pieces crafted by the paper’s editorial board. Columns are pieces written by our individual writers. Finally, we publish select letters our readers send us.

This semester, we hope to add a new type of columns, which we’re calling “insights.” While similar to columns, they are longer and involve more research.

We want to publish more content from our readers. In this vein, we’re going to be reaching out to campus organizations – specifically ones that might disagree with each other – to present conflicting opinions on important student issues.

We’re also looking into starting an essay series, where we’d have a variety of community members write in-depth pieces about issues that fall under their areas of expertise.

This semester is sure to be an eventful one for the editorial page as we continue looking for ways to improve upon our content. Nevertheless, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Regardless of what happens this semester, we will continue to do what the editorial page has always done best: provide insightful, thought-provoking content on the issues that are most important to University of Wisconsin students.

If you have any ideas or feedback for the editorial page or are interested in getting involved, please email us at [email protected].