Cam Says
It’s our last edition of Craccum for 2020 and it’s our last editorial. It’s rewarding to be able to write this but the feeling is bittersweet, it’s rather sad to be signing off on something that has been a large part of my life for the last three years, and I’m going to miss it.
The university year for 2020 is drawing to a close and for many of us, this will have been one of our most challenging years. 2020 threw many curveballs our way and when Dan and I took on this role at the beginning of the year, we could never have anticipated what was to come.
I want to thank all of you for reading us this year. Not only for picking us up when we’re in print, but for following us online, reading us digitally or picking up our articles off social media. It’s been a pleasure to produce Craccum this year and to connect our campus as we separated out. I hope that these editions can serve as a time capsule for the student experience for 2020 and for what we’ve lived through.
Thank you to the wonderful Craccum editorial team this year for all their hard work. For the million Zoom meetings, facebook messages, and for all their hard work in making this magazine what it is. It’s a joy to work with such wonderful people.
Although it may be our last edition, it is far from the last edition of Craccum. Craccum will be back next year ready to tackle whatever 2021 has in store. Till then.
Cheers,
Cam
Dan says
I can’t believe it. It’s the last week of semester – we actually made it.
When Cam and I first took over the magazine, pumping out 24 issues of Craccum seemed like an impossible task. It seemed even more impossibler when, a couple weeks into semester one, we were told that everything was moving online. Despite that, we’ve (somehow) managed to keep everything together. What a miracle.
Better yet, we’ve actually achieved our vision for the mag. At the beginning of the year, me and Cam decided we wanted to focus more on student issues. Craccum is a student magazine after all – we figured students would want to see us put more energy into holding the university to account, and investigating news on and around campus.
We couldn’t have picked a crazier year to make this our focus. From the university buying Dawn a house, to the online learning debacle; from the in-person exams decision, to the university’s social media monitoring; from university clubs taking money, to compassionate consideration fees – we’ve had a lot to write about this year. And people seem to have liked it. All of our metrics show student engagement with the magazine is massively up from last year. We won a bunch of prizes at the Aotearoa Student Press Awards. We’ve had multiple articles picked up and republished by bigger, legit news sites. It’s been an amazing ride; a ride which definitively proved students want to read about student issues.
Unfortunately – as the move of the original Shadows Bar has shown us – all good things must come to an end. Me and Cam won’t be back next year. This is it – the final hoorah.
But before you break down in tears (I know, I know, how can our beautiful faces ever be replaced?) take note – Craccum will be back in 2021. No doubt it will be better than ever too; we had an amazing team this year, filled with students who buy into the vision of the mag and want to take it further. I can’t wait to see what they do next.
Cheers,
Dan
PS. Thank you to everyone who contributed to Craccum this year – the number of contributors, and the quality of the work we were given, was unlike anything we’ve seen before. A special thanks to those who wrote deeply personal essays, especially around stigmatic issues like mental health. It’s not easy to open yourself up to others, but we at Craccum strongly believe that sharing our experiences helps to create a healthier student community.