Gavriela Goodbye Letter

I knew I wanted to be a part of Voices ever since I learned of its existence in eighth grade when I found a spare copy in a classroom. When I entered 9th grade, I joined my first meeting, over Zoom, and was welcomed into a community of funny, intelligent individuals who were passionate about their work. I remember my editor, Lola, calling me to check on how my article was going and offering me advice on how I could make my journalism, both on the interviewing side and the writing side, even better. This was an incredibly intimidating experience as a freshman who was not yet sure of her place, both in Voices and in high school as a whole. I did know, in that moment, though, that I wanted to be an editor, and maybe even editor-in-chief, of Voices one day. 

Coming back to school after the pandemic, it took Voices some time to adjust. There was a big push to bring Voices back to a print newspaper, like it used to be, in addition to its online component. It is one of my proudest accomplishments as editor that every issue we published this year was distributed in print. I love walking around after an issue has been published and seeing kids with their heads bent over our crossword or inquisitively reading our articles. 

I believe that it is so important to have objective reporting about events that affect students that is written by students, for students. When I became editor-in-chief, my co-editors and I agreed that we wanted to use Voices to tackle serious issues that impacted students head on. I would like to think that we did that this year. There is still progress to be made but I hope we were able to give voice to many of the issues that directly affect and directly concern students. We were told on numerous occasions this year by students and teachers alike that our version of Voices was the newspaper as it should be, dealing with important issues in introspective, thoughtful ways. For that I am so grateful for my co-editors and everyone who worked to make Voices what it was this year. 

Voices is a storied institution at Masterman that has seen some of the funniest, smartest, cleverest people (controversial op-eds in tow) that Masterman has to offer. I am so proud to be a part of this institution, and I cannot wait to see where it goes next. Mariacristina and Jocelyn, thank you for all of the work you’ve done this year. The future of Voices is in your hands and I cannot wait to see what you will do with it.