To entering first-years, both those staying on-campus and those living at home, and new transfer students, The Observer staff welcomes you to Case Western Reserve University. Within your new home lies a plethora of secrets and many incredible places that you will come to learn soon enough.

As you become more comfortable with your surroundings and prepare for your first weekend and then your first week of classes, remember to be your own person. As a now member of the CWRU community, it’s important for you to pursue your own interests, whether that is joining an organization, taking an interesting class or working an exciting job. Just as important, remember to try to make friends, those that will encourage you to pursue your interests and whom you can inspire as well.

As a community, we must all strive to form our own opinions on our campus. To help, The Observer staff has prepared a quick guide on a few things we think you might want to know. There, you will find out about which campus tree is a descendant of one that inspired Newton to create his theory of gravity and the soon-to-come campuswide nerf-war, Humans vs. Zombies. Curious about the new building being built on the North Residential Village, our stellar wrestling team, or how your meal swipe money is being spent?

That last one brings up an important point, as CWRU members it is important to also be aware of campus happenings and issues. We’re a great community, but far from a perfect one—you being involved can make a difference.

Last year ended with a plethora of unsolved issues, ranging from a campuswide-need to address sexual misconduct and intra-campus transportation to a structural lack of school spirit and student oversight of the Student Executive Council (SEC), which last fall appropriated approximately $790,000, or $171 from each student. Just as you see differing opinions from returning students on what it means to be at CWRU in this issue of The Observer, you should note how your viewpoints differ from others when it comes to campus issues—and let us know about it.

Just as The Observer Staff wants you to know the secrets our campus, we want to ensure that you are able to have a quality discussion surrounding these concerns. That would be hard without knowing the staff. You can find information about us online. What you will notice is that many of us joined the paper our first year and completed a wide variety of unrelated positions before embracing our current ones. We all began as you are right now. For those interested, we currently have great opportunities to join our organization including positions such as photographers, business team members, designers, and writers.

If you agree or disagree with an item in The Observer, or feel that something should have been covered, write an Letter to the Editor. Anyone can write a letter and there are no requirements to submit one, which can be done on our website. Just as our writers strive to capture the campus, you new readers should argue back to add to the discussion. The Observer goes to print every Friday, and we’re always online at observer.case.edu. We hope to get to know you.

The Observer Staff