Last week the Torch elected its 96th editorial board. As we reflect on our last e-board’s accomplishments in terms of the overall coverage of the St. John’s University community, we wish to continue to bring our readers the news that they care about and, more importantly, the news that they need to know.

With this being said, we hope to increase our coverage even more. We want to elevate our reach to more aspects of the University. We also want to continue to have the voices of our student body represented in this newspaper.

In order to accomplish this, one of the main goals that we have as an e-board is to grow our staff participation and recruit more writers of diverse backgrounds.

We strive to encourage more students studying journalism, communications and other majors — because you do not have to be a journalism major to write for the Torch — to become a member of St. John’s independent student newspaper.

Whether you want to write, design, create videos or take photos, and would like to become aware of our journalistic standards and practices, there is a place for you here.

We also want to encourage students who don’t wish to be a part of the Torch, but have something they’d like to address in the paper, to send us letters to the editor. That also goes for faculty and administrators. We will publish them.

Moreover, we wish to instill within our members, both in the e-board and general staff, the drive to constantly improve our craft.

We are students after all, therefore we are here to learn from each other so that we can be the change we wish to see in the journalism industry today. One way we want to encourage this is by creating workshops and organizing more talks with professionals in the field throughout the 2018-19 academic year.

We also acknowledge that we are coming in after a semester in which the Torch was boycotted by several multicultural organizations on campus.

We will not ignore this.

Instead we will continue to address what happened if and when we are asked. Our hope is that in the near future, the distrust that some students feel toward the paper will be repaired.

And the only way we can do that is through our work — which we will always hold to ethical and journalistic standards. We will be held accountable, too.

The Torch has been around for almost 100 years now. This e-board wants to ensure that we are remembered for always keeping the students at St. John’s well-informed and represented in our pages.