As we write this final article to you, our Register Forum community, we are filled with gratitude. In room 3401, where we host our monthly NewsStorms, we’ve laughed, argued, pitched, cried, laid out the paper––and, most importantly, fostered community and connection within the CRLS community. The Register Forum has been far more than just a monthly edition to us: it has been our home, our joy, and our resistance. As the days grow warmer and the end of the year draws to a close, we would like to take a moment to reflect on these past eight months.
We want to begin by thanking those who made this endeavor possible: our team of Editors. Thank you for all your hard work. Your dedication and excitement for journalism is what makes this paper great. There are not enough shoutouts we can give to be under the 500 word limit—but we’ll try our best. First, to our brilliant Nation Editors Anna-Maria Chelidze and Calvin Lewis, thank you for taking on the most pressing stories with curiosity and precision. To our Managing Editors Alma Barak, Hannah Erickson, Hazel Marcucella and Jordan Gwon, thank you for showing up for this team. We’ll miss your laughter at layout and invaluable friendship.
To Ezra Lee, our Around School Editor: the detail in your feedback is meticulous, thank you for all your work. To our Metro Editors Sinead O’Gorman-Jones and Meadow Bilimoria: thank you for dedication to the RF. To our Arts and Entertainment Editors, Eli Bartholomew and Sophia Kennedy: thank you for providing exciting and relevant reviews for the section. To our Opinion Editors Lucy Bingham and Weyni Kidanemariam, thank you for your flexibility as the Opinion section grew this year. To our Sports Editors Isabelle Larabee and Oliver Henke: your contributions better the paper and have invited new voices.
To the solo section editors: Max Klum, our Food and Culture Editor; and Alaan Clarke, our Games and Humor Editor, thank you for your commitment to your respective sections and for showing up to the NewsStorms with a positive, efficacious, attitude.
To our wonderful media team: our Illustrations Editors Natania George, Freddie Funck, Shahria Bassiria, and Khadimatou Faye; and our intrepid Photo Editors Olive Berotta and Ronan Muellner, thank you for caring deeply about your work and for allowing us to share it with the CRLS community.
But we want to say something bigger too, because we’re leaving our roles as Editors-in-Chief at a time when student voice and student journalism is more important than ever. Over the past few months, educational institutions, particularly higher education, have come under attack. The banning of books, cutting of funding to schools, and the destruction of the Department of Education are all symptoms of this agenda. We have also seen the ways in which student speech has been suppressed. The deportations of Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia and Rümeysa Öztürk at Tufts are clear efforts to intimidate and criminalize student activism. Our journalistic work matters because it insists on context, nuance and truth.
Our experience, not only as Editors-in-Chief, but as editors—and once, as freshman contributors—has taught us that journalism doesn’t begin in Washington or The New York Times. It begins here, with the Register Forum. It begins with you. We know this is true because we experienced it first hand when we interviewed students at Harvard and MIT encampments last June. There, we saw how our nation’s foreign policy choices were impacting a school only five minutes from our own, and how students were responding, organizing, writing, and more. These students were strong in their conviction. That same urgency is required of us now.
While the Trump agenda may feel distant in its reach, it’s important to recognize that it has implications on our cities and for our students. The national is local, the personal is political. Now is the time to speak loudly, to act courageously, to write boldly. Use the Register Forum as a platform to defend the things which you care most about, serve your community, and guide your resistance.
And finally, we can assure you that the Register Forum has been left in good hands. Our new Editors-in-Chief Hazel Marcucella and Sinead O’Gorman-Jones who will lead this publication into a new year of growth.
We have been truly changed by this experience and we are proud to have led this team and this paper. All the best, your Editors-in-Chief, Abby and Maddy.
This article also appears in our 2025 April print edition.
