All members of the Andrews University community should desire a positive and healthy environment to dwell in. Unfortunately, positivity and health have, at times, been in short supply. Fostering growth, embracing change and continually lifting one another up are factors that make a community a positive one. A community environment that has honest conversations and free ideological expression is a strong indicator of its health. While I believe the Andrews environment has grown and improved in a multitude of ways, there are clear times when individuals or the community at large have fallen short. Accountability and dialogue are necessary to avoid further shortcomings by our community; that’s where The Student Movement comes in.
Student newspapers such as ours are essential to addressing issues and events facing school communities and creating meaningful dialogue with quality content creation. The news content that we write goes beyond Instagram rumor mills or whispered assumptions about the well-being of the university and its members. Andrews needs The Student Movement because it has not reached its full potential of being a positive and healthy institution that practically changes the world. Our writing showcases professional student work, preserves anecdotes of over a century of Andrews history, and provides a meaningful space for students, employees, alumni and other readers to accurately praise and critique how our community and leaders perform. The Student Movement is nothing without its contributors and engaged readers. Andrews will become nothing without the continuation of the services we have provided since 1915.
Students working together for the benefit of other Andrews students is a focal point of the mission of The Student Movement. As every student is attending college to acquire skills, knowledge and credits to be used toward their professional lives, the paper’s paid positions have provided students with meaningful experience and opportunities in communications. Students express their creativity and ideals constructively, giving fellow students and other readers an insight into who they are and what matters to them. This offer is not limited to just digital communications and English students, either. Students from every major and department have opportunities to develop communication and networking skills while being able to write, edit or do multimedia work on topics of interest and relevance to them.
Additionally, without a platform for students like The Student Movement, students are left largely voiceless. Despite being the most important stakeholder of Andrews, student access to executive meetings and say in policy-making is very limited. While utilizing forums like the Andrews University Student Association and Student Senate are valid ways to have student representation in administrative affairs, the efficient and more public nature of The Student Movement is advantageous to establish awareness and advocacy. Alumni and other Andrews community members directly benefit from this platform, since The Student Movement’s online publication allows those off campus to be connected with the events and topics actively impacting those on campus.
Our newspaper provides updates on contemporary issues impacting students, the university, and the world around us, but it also serves as a historical archive of past topics of interest and notable events. Through continually having a well-maintained newspaper, we can reflect on the facts and opinions of the time and see how they may inform our understanding of the future. We can see the evolution of how race was viewed on campus, from the racially-motivated cross-burnings on campus recorded in 1975 issues of The Student Movement to the #ItIsTimeAU movement and the university’s response to calls for needed dialogue and change in how ethnic minorities are regarded in the community.
Andrews University historian and professor emerita Meredith Jones Gray summarized it well when she stated, “This student paper…reveals, as no other sources possibly can, the day-to-day life of the campus of Emmanuel Missionary College and Andrews University, as well as its intellectual, social and spiritual culture and historical trends.”
We can also see the cyclical nature of how Adventism continues to struggle with the topic of women’s pastoral ordination, from The Student Movement covering Sligo SDA Church ordaining women in September 1995, to students asking questions about whether the Adventist church is adequately responding to social issues in recent issues of the paper.
Over the decades, The Student Movement has gone beyond posting school lunch menus and talking about the Week of Prayer speaker. We have discussed wars, social movements, political controversies, denominational affairs and more, all in the context of how they impact our Andrews-affiliated readers. Covering these topics contributes to the wider societal discourse on the subject, while encouraging religious, social, and political engagement in our readers when relevant. The Andrews community needs The Student Movement as a platform for this discourse to formulate in a way that is productive, clearly identifies fact from gossip, and gives students and other community members a proverbial microphone to voice their opinions and desires.
Well-written pieces from The Student Movement have sparked meaningful conversations for decades. Since at least the 1970s, Student Movement writers and contributors have lobbied for Adventists, especially youth, to be more politically aware and active. In a November 1972 edition of the newspaper, Judy Myers, a sophomore history and English major at the time, wrote, “For too long, Adventists have played the ostrich concerning politics.” She continued, “We cannot become involved in a rational way unless we understand the issues and talk them over with people of differing opinions. The SM is one medium for that exchange of ideas.” The following month, the paper's editors published responses from United States senators, Robert P. Griffin and Philip A. Hart, to The Student Movement’s questions on the separation of church and state, including the appropriateness of non-public institutions such as Andrews receiving government aid.
The Student Movement has continued this legacy of activism in recent articles and issues, which has caused noticeable impacts and has served as the catalyst for practical change on campus. One excellent example of this is a March 2024 issue that covered extensive accessibility deficiencies of campus infrastructure, sparking intrigue and investigations from other Andrews departments on accessibility. In response, the Andrews administration has committed to improving campus accessibility and has been actively working on several ways to improve.
The Student Movement will continue to do its best to serve its community as best as possible. As print media has given way to digital and social media, we have and will continue to work to improve how we provide coverage that is worthwhile to our readers. We need you to be engaged as a reader and actively aware of our community’s dealings. Read the articles when you can, answer and reflect on the questions that our writers ask, and have discussions with those around you about what is going on at Andrews, the Adventist Church, and the world. Awareness leads to accountability, which in turn provides us with a university that is more willing to grow and develop to the ministry center it is designed to be. The world needs the best out of Andrews University, and to get that, you need the best out of The Student Movement.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.