Dear Reader,
In honor of Commencement, I’m proud to present the Deerfield Scroll’s first 20-page issue! When I first suggested that we aim for 20 at the beginning of this month, there was some concern about sacrificing quality for quantity (and understandably so). That ended up being far from the case. I’d like to thank the Scroll staff, editors, and advisors for their many hours of tireless effort and commitment to achieving this goal.
With our previous issue, some questions surfaced surrounding the Scroll and its relationship with the Academy. I firmly believe it is more important than ever that the Scroll remains uncensored by the administration — this is the Academy’s official stance, and I am committed to its continuation in practice. Our goal is that neither administrators nor trustees will exert influence over what we publish.
Recently we have received a lot of feedback from multiple parties regarding our newspaper’s opinion pieces. We are committed to providing an unbiased platform for any member of the Deerfield community to opine if they are willing to stand behind their views in a public forum. This issue, we have opinion pieces written by students, faculty, parents and staff — all of these constituencies care deeply about our school, and we will continue to invite and host their opinions.
As stated in our masthead, opinion articles with contributors’ names attached solely represent the views of the respective writers. We strive to publish well-written, thoughtful opinions based in logic and reason, and ask that you, as a reader, carefully consider the reasoning of these writers before dismissing (or agreeing!) out of hand due to preconceived notions.
Within the newsroom, we will continue to report objectively on news stories that are relevant and worthy of readers’ attention. Last issue, we published a feature article on special Asian cuisine training that the Dining Hall staff received over spring break. The impact of this piece was far from what we intended. I’d like to apologize for making any staff members feel that their hard work was not appreciated.
As always, we will remain mindful of the picture of Deerfield that we portray. We understand that the responsibility lies with us, the Editorial Board, to ensure the accuracy of our stories and keep our community well-informed.
As the tents come up and another eventful year draws to a close, potential for great change in our school lies ahead. Through it all, I hope we can embrace a wide range of perspectives, and not shy away from voicing our opinions for fear of repercussions. An atmosphere of aversion to criticism or controversy will lead only to a lack of productive discussion on campus.
To the Class of 2018: thank you for your leadership and friendship. You will be dearly missed.
Joshua Fang
Co-Editor-in-Chief