Dear Readers,
The staff of the Harvard Independent is proud to present to you our first issue of the new year: “The Transition.”
While thinking about our plans for this issue and this year as a whole, we were reminded of the questions posed by French painter Paul Gaugin, and addressed in an article by our previous President, Jilly Cronin ’21:
Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?
These words capture the enigma of the now — our endeavor to position the Independent on a timeline of its past, present, and future.
They also speak to the many transformations we are currently witnessing: on the national level, a political transition, with many Harvard alumni filling the seats of a new administration; on the local landscape, a cultural transition, where Harvard students face a de-densified campus and remote learning for the first time in school history; and, specifically impacting the Independent, a transition in its leadership. I’m here — your new Editor-in-Chief — to speak on the behalf of the new Executive Board.
Where do we come from? The Independent comes from its student protestors of 1969 who sought to break away from the hostile press environment of the time. The Independent also comes from the generations of students that followed, who questioned and wrote and drew and printed and did it all over again, week after week, for the past fifty years. We are proud to belong to this history.
The second question is one of the present. What are we? Well, we’re journalists. We tell stories — short and zippy, long and probing. We interrogate ourselves, eachother, and our leaders, at Harvard and beyond. We summon the courage to uncover truths, to illuminate the unknown, and as a result, we shine the spotlight on who we are.
Our job is necessary. As it was in 1969, the year 2021 begs for honest dialogue, objective reporting, and keen introspection. This semester in particular demands good journalism: we are physically distanced from many of our classmates. We can’t debate each other over trays in the dining hall or serendipitously approach a professor after class. We can, however, carry on the conversation as best we can through published word, bringing us all a little closer together while seizing the journalistic opportunities of the moment.
That brings me to the third question, Where are we going?
I think of Amanda Gorman’s words at President Biden’s inauguration: “We did not feel prepared to be the heirs / of such a terrifying hour / but within it we found the power / to author a new chapter.”
In this issue and future issues, we will continue to derive light from darkness, brilliance from obscurity, and power from a previously blank page. We will lean into our distinctive edge, the flourish of art and language that links us to the counterculture in which we were founded.
But this vision is only a fraction of the story. The Independent will be defined by a kaleidoscope of voices — our writers, editors, illustrators and photographers; our designers, technicians, and marketers; our committed alumni, whose traditions we inherit; and future Indyites, who will carry on the legacy of our narrative today.
It’s a new year. A new semester. A new dawn for our country. And at the Independent, a new chapter begins.
Yours,
Mary Julia Koch ’23
Editor-in-Chief