Though we as a community are always striving to improve ourselves and Guilford College, this is a year of particularly impressive change. Last year, students from groups like Integrity for Guilford held rallies and hosted discussions to address concerns from students of color and other marginalized voices on campus. We continue to applaud the efforts of our community — especially our student activists — to remind us to live up to our values and put them into action. We believe that we are in a period of positive change for the school.

We have already seen more intentional hiring practices from Guilford’s staff and administration. Policy changes, such as expansion of the amnesty policy, hint at larger institutional efforts to reform our judicial system to be more fair and better address problems of racial and gender bias that students brought to light last year. Our student-elected Senate Executive Board is made up of a diverse array of student leaders.

As a student-run newspaper and a platform for all voices in the community, we at The Guilfordian hope to grow with the College in this time of development. Our mission statement reminds us to pursue honest and informative reporting that is guided by the College’s core values of community, diversity, equality, excellence, integrity, justice and stewardship. We plan to continue educating ourselves on becoming an anti-racist newspaper, one that is dedicated to bringing to light the underreported and untold social justice stories of our community.

We hope these trends of change continue, and that students, staff and faculty strive to uphold our values and challenge ourselves to grow even when it is difficult. Transition can be challenging, and there will surely be bumps along the road as always, but we are hopeful for what the future holds.

Reflecting Guilford College’s core Quaker values, the topics and content of Staff Editorials are chosen through consensus of all 13 editors and one faculty adviser of The Guilfordian’s Editorial Board.