Following summer and fall staff recruitment, The Eagle will focus on promoting its contributing writer program in the coming months, members of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion group announced Thursday.
The contributing writer program allows any American University student to attend weekly meetings and produce content for any of The Eagle’s six departments, including writing and editing in Spanish for the new El Águila initiative.
More contributing writers and editors will bolster the diversity of the paper’s coverage and help ensure that students from all academic majors and communities on campus are represented by The Eagle, according to DEI group members.
The DEI group also discussed the status of stories related to LGBTQ+ Pride Month and the diversity of AU’s tenured professors during its Thursday meeting.
To further diversify The Eagle’s coverage, DEI group members spoke about collaborating with other student organizations on campus. Such collaboration may produce special multimedia content during the summer and fall semesters.
DEI members also said they hope that some identity-based groups on campus express interest in writing a regular column, an effort to continue The Eagle’s Identities column. Communication between The Eagle and other student groups will ensure that the paper is aware of student-hosted events and programs happening around campus.
The DEI group also said that they plan to host another mandatory diversity, equity and inclusion training for all staffers following fall recruitment in September.
Until then, the DEI group will provide previous training materials and pointers to current staffers, like ensuring that the paper’s reporting regularly includes international students. And managing editors have been asked to remind their section’s members that the DEI group is looking for more voices, as meetings are open to all Eagle staffers.
Many Eagle staffers, including some DEI group members, will work with the online department over the summer to evaluate and refresh The Eagle’s social media and web presence to make it more inclusive and accessible, according to the DEI group. The team will also explore other ways that the paper can connect with the greater AU community.
