My name is Victoria Bochniak, and I am editor in chief of El Vaquero this spring. The pandemic has been unbelievably frustrating for students and staff. With months of Zoom meetings to come, it’s easy to feel like schoolwork is impossible to escape. 

As the spring semester gets underway, El Vaquero resumes remote operations to serve you and our community. This semester we are happy to introduce El Vaquero’s new advisor, Michael Tipping, and to welcome an additional instructor in the Journalism Department, Minerva Canto.

Last semester we strived to report on the challenges that members of our college community encountered while adjusting to a fully remote semester while we also sought to document the pandemic’s economic toll on local businesses and national events. Over the winter, former co-editor in chief Eian Gil and I worked on compiling the semester’s most compelling stories for the 12th edition of the GCC Insider Magazine. It spotlights stories about the French and Armenian language departments, Black Student Union’s demands for change, the obstacles faced by disabled students during the pandemic and the new collaboration between GCC’s Journalism and History departments.  

This spring, our commitment to covering timely and essential issues at the college and in the community will not waver. We look forward to serving the campus and bringing you the comprehensive information you need. 

Although our paper may not appear in print on campus, the publications at El Vaquero are more than just words on a screen. In a time of remote learning and social distancing, they are channels for all of us to connect to Glendale College and ultimately to each other. Staying current on the news while adhering to journalistic principles are imperative to a successful publication, and with the support of our readers and editors we hope to do both, and more, this semester. We strive to be inclusive of all members of our community in our reporting, and we rely greatly on feedback from our readers on how we can improve. We encourage you to contact us directly, and if you would like to respond to any of our published content, we welcome you to submit a Letter to the Editor. 

We are always working to improve communication between El Vaquero and the student body. We’re aiming for synchronous rollouts of stories across social media and our website, and will  promote campus events and workshops on Twitter and Instagram. 

As editor in chief, I hope to foster a fair, safe and mutually supportive atmosphere that furthers the mission of El Vaquero as an independent, student-run publication. Whether you are brand new to campus or nearing graduation, I encourage you to check out our website and reach out if there is something we should know about. Wishing you all the best of success this semester.

We got this, Vaqs!

Victoria Bochniak can be reached at [email protected]