Fall 2019: December Issue 4
Dearest Vulcan,
We’ve made it – to the school year’s midpoint for most, to the final countdown til graduation for some; needless to say, a few weeks of leisure, slumber, travel, or celebration will be deeply welcome. Thanks for pausing to pick up what we here at Ke Kalahea have been working to give you as the last weeks of the semester come to a close.
Overlapping themes will often lapse through certain seasons for me, signifying transitions through my experiences, relationships, localities, and challenges. This seminal semester as Editor-in-Chief – which felt and still sometimes feels like stepping into a suit too cute to admit it doesn’t quite fit right – has been one that’s reverberated with common elements spread out to every other corner of my life like a ripple effect. At its center lies a simple, yet resoundingly august, artform: honest communication.
Nobody is perfect at dialogue, but a lot of problems could be solved if people actively aimed to learn the difference between hearing versus listening and talking versus telling. The next time you’re confronted with someone’s perspective contradictory to your own, try putting your opinion in your back pocket and stepping into their shoes for a second or two. Without empathy, it’s nearly impossible to generate new ideas that we desperately need to move forward in a world of manifold troubles.
Inclusivity, or the practice of establishing a fair and equitable environment for all, particularly for those who might otherwise be marginalized, is one of the most beneficial byproducts of dialogue, and was a central tenet to the regional conference for the Association of College Unions International (ACUI) attended by our Associate Editor Clara Scheidle, our Advisor Tiffany Edwards Hunt, and I this past month in Reno, Nevada. We learned how we can be better advocates for and administrators of acceptance, especially during an era of heightened awareness about how historical traumas, residual injustices, and current intersectionalities affect everything from society and politics to relationships and identities.
In journalism, inclusive dialogue is best represented through telling others’ stories with truth and transparency, removing our own biases as reporters, and taking action through the act of informing in order to change the narratives that have sought to silence and separate others. Journalistic integrity requires trying our hardest to leave our personal interpretations at home, but as humans, we communicate through stories. Our work can serve as a form of reclamation for those whose stories beg to be brought to light.
The next time you read from all of us here at Ke Kalahea, we’ll have entered into a new decade, hot off the press of time’s impending progression. Are you reflecting on the past 10 years in retrospect, or are you peering ahead at what the future will bear? Whatever your modus operandi, I’m wishing you all the best for the burgeoning term to come, and we’ll see you in January.
Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hauʻoli Makahiki Hou!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Rosannah
Explore this Issue
- ACUI Reflections
- Aftershock
- Aloha Oe Seniors
- Complying with the Clery Act on Campus
- Discussions with Kanilehua's Editor-in-Chief Braden Savage
- Dishwasher Down!
- Freshman Feathers: Meeting Your Roommate
- Reduce, Reuse, Recy - Wait
- Student Walkout Protests UH Management of Maunakea
- Studying Across Europe: A Vulcan's Tale
- The Evacuation Situation
- The Mauna Rules
- Utilizing the UH Hilo App
- Voices of UH Hilo's Jazz Orchestra
- Well, Hello!