Matt Modell, Editorial Editor

As Editorial Editor, it is my responsibility to ensure the
editorial board produces quality editorials. In addition, I chair
all editorial board meetings and am the primary writer and reporter
for the board. It is my goal to tackle difficult and at many times
controversial issues. It is important to write editorials that are
crisp and clear in their position and will make you, the reader,
think.

The editorial board needs to take a role in keeping the student
government as honest as possible, challenge administrators to make
sure their decisions are made with the student body in mind and
resist intimidation by outside influences.

I encourage readers to read the editorials and leave feedback
online or write a letter to the editor. As an editorial board, we
want to hear from you with your thoughts: the good, the bad and the
ugly.

I believe my year and a half in student government, my work with
administrators on issues including the 24-hour library and
segregated fees and my involvement in other student organizations
make me well educated on campus issues. My work on campus, with
congressional political campaigns, and with internships I have held
at the state Capitol and with the Bush administration in
Washington, D.C., has given me a diverse range of experiences and
perspectives to draw from when writing on state and national
issues. I am a senior graduating in December. I am majoring in
journalism and political science and a native of Bloomington, Minn.
My weekly column can still be found on these pages every Thursday,
and you can reach me at [email protected].

Eric Cullen, Editor in Chief
As the editor in chief of the newspaper, it is my responsibility to
oversee and maintain the quality of the publication as a whole. A
former reporter, news editor and editor of the editorial page last
year, I now work within the office to coordinate production with
our business and advertising departments as well as making final
decisions on content and editing concerns. I also serve as the
public face and voice of the newspaper. If you, as readers, have
any questions, comments, concerns or requests for information about
any aspects of our newspaper, I”m happy to field them. While having
responsibilities in many different arenas, I view my
responsibilities on the editorial board as my most important and
prized because not only do they satisfy my desire to engage in
basic, on-the-ground journalism, they also allow me to interact
with the readership.

I exercise no greater authority within the board than any of the
other members do. We always check outside authority at the door of
our boardroom and arrive at decisions as a body, a policy which I
believe yields more cogent, credible and thought-provoking pieces.
Though I maintain and exercise some direction over news content,
the stories are reported and crafted nearly exclusively by our
highly capable news reporters and editors. As the line below each
unsigned editorial-board opinion reiterates daily, we arrive at our
editorial conclusions independent of the work of the news staff,
though we do work with them.

One of my primary goals as editor of the paper is to see that the
coverage we supply in news complements that which we provide on the
editorial page. It is not uncommon for sources to receive two
different phone calls on the same night, one from a news reporter
chasing the grittiest details and another from an editorial staffer
searching for further insight. No issue exists in a vacuum, and you
need only turn back to page one for as pure and unabashed an
account of the news as we can produce. As you read and react to all
of our pieces, it is my goal that you receive a fair and poignant
view of the campus community around you.

Stacy Hicklin, Managing Editor
As managing editor, I feel it is important to be a member of the
editorial board, and I welcome the challenges and discussion this
responsibility brings. The editorial board is a valuable tool for
fostering debate on this campus, and one of our main goals this
year is to create an environment conducive to doing just that.

While my professional background is in sports writing and editing,
I have still remained involved in campus and governmental issues
and am excited to take a more active role in the numerous issues
the paper will discuss on the editorial page.

While Eric, as editor in chief, deals largely with outside issues
involving the paper and advertising and business needs, my role
centers more specifically on the editorial staff. It is my job to
coordinate ideas and stories among the different departments and
basically help to make the paper run smoothly on a daily basis.

I will be involved in the selection of front-page stories while
helping each of the section heads develop new writers. Each night,
I will be responsible for coordinating advertising needs with page
needs for each section.

Last semester I was a sports editor, and I became managing editor
this year because I believe the Herald and the things that happen
here every night at 326 W. Gorham are extremely special.

After interning this summer in the sports department of the Cape
Cod Times, I am excited to be back in Madison with many fresh ideas
to continue to improve the Herald and make the publication not just
a good paper, but also one of the elite college newspapers in the
country. I will be a senior majoring in journalism, and in addition
to my duties here at the Herald and at school, I will be
freelancing for the Capital Times and for Sports Illustrated on
Campus. In May, I will venture out into the real world, hoping to
find a glorious job as a sportswriter.

Paul Temple, Editorial Page Editor
Born and bred in Wauwatosa, Wis., I am no stranger to debate. With
a Chicago Bears fan for a mother and a Packers fan for a father, I
have spent much of my life between two sides of heated arguments
over dinner. As any Wisconsinite knows, this sort of an upbringing
can be more than enough to qualify someone for a position in which
debate is as essential as air. But my experience does not end
there. I have interned in a congressional office, run a statewide
student campaign, raised money as a staffer for several political
and nonprofit campaigns and participated in various student
groups.

My main responsibility as the Editorial Page Editor is to oversee
the production of the opinion page. This includes copy editing,
page design, subject selection and columnist management. My primary
goal for the opinion page this year is to activate a lively campus
discourse on important issues. We enjoy great freedoms to
participate in politics. John Stuart Mill once said that liberty is
defined as the absolute freedom of opinion on all subjects. I
believe that too often when we fail to use our freedoms, as too
many students do, we relinquish them. We give in to what seems to
be consensus when the majority is actually silent, apathetic or
both. I want to activate a livelier campus discussion through our
opinion page because students need to participate in a more
vigorous and educated discussion on the many issues that affect
their daily lives before the great right to do so becomes
meaningless.

With that said, if you disagree with any of my columns, if you
think our editorials couldn”t be more wrong, or if you think we are
doing a great job, contact me. My e-mail address is , and the phone
number for the editorial desk is 257-4712 ext. 157.

Kari Bellingham, Associate Editorial Page Editor
I like to think of the opinion page as the interactive section of
The Badger Herald. That”s because the opinion section is truly the
readers’ chance to get involved and let us know what you like, what
you don”t like and what you think we should do to improve the
paper. You can write a letter to the editor, post feedback online,
be a guest columnist or even directly contact a staff member. The
Badger Herald is a forum for free expression, and we welcome all
ideas and opinions.

As Associate Editorial Page Editor and a member of the editorial
board, I encourage all readers to think critically about the issues
on these pages and respond with your thoughts. This paper is put
together each day for you, the reader, so your involvement is
crucial to our success.

The editorial board will work together each day to produce a
powerful voice on issues that affect students on this campus. Our
goal is to take a stance on a given issue and hopefully elicit
change, or at the very least awareness, on that particular issue.
We hope to produce unanimous opinions as an editorial board, but
with the five of us barely able to agree on where to grab a bite to
eat, it could prove to be an interesting year.

My own experience includes gigs as a news reporter, copy editor and
opinion writer for the Herald. I have also worked closely in the
past with the Student Press Law Center in Washington, D.C., to
defend the First Amendment rights of student journalists.

I am a junior hailing from Faribault, Minn. (And FYI, I do indeed
say “pop,” I drink from a keg, and I had no idea what a bubbler was
until I arrived at UW.) I”m majoring in journalism and my weekly
column will appear here each Tuesday. You can reach me at with any
feedback you might have. Happy reading, and I look forward to
hearing from you.