Editorial: Passing Off the Coffee Mug—Uh, I Mean, the Torch

To all Pitt-Greensburg students, faculty, and staff:

I’ve typed my last byline as the Editor-in-Chief of The Insider. I’m not crying, you’re crying! 

You’re definitely not crying, but if there’s one positive thing about this quarantine, it’s that you can’t tell if I’m crying, either! Nice try, hackers—I keep a purple sticky note in front of my camera.

Tears or no tears, now more than ever it feels like the clock on the wall is counting down to the end of my time at Pitt-Greensburg. It’s an odd feeling to be a graduating senior but not feel at all like a graduating senior. 

As I cross off the days on my calendar—which, truthfully, is the only reason I still know what day it is—I’m thinking about how this is not the way this goodbye was supposed to be.

It’s funny to me that, for years, older generations have been criticizing all of the ways people use technology today, and now that very use of technology is the only thing keeping our communities together. Maybe, if the world wasn’t, you know, ending and all that jazz, we could all have our moment to say, “HA! I told you so.” 

I don’t know if I’ll ever really feel like this chapter in my life got the necessary punctuation. Virtual goodbyes aren’t the same as looking a friend in the eye and thanking them for their friendship or shaking a professor’s hand while you thank them for their advice and guidance. 

The Insider will go on without me, as it has done every time the editor-in-chief has graduated in the past, and I want to encourage all of you returning students to keep this group of reporters and photographers in mind when you’re looking for a new club to join. Now more than ever, journalism is the bridge between the public and the decision-makers, and everyone else who’s doing something worth knowing. Remember that your student newspaper is here, working hard to keep you informed and, when you need it, give you a laugh.

And, to my fellow members of Pitt-Greensburg’s Class of 2020: congratulations, and please continue to update your Instagram with all of your vacation photos for the next few years, because law school is expensive, and I won’t be able to afford a vacation of my own for a long, long time.

—Kaylee Stinebiser

Editor-in-Chief, The Insider