A second-year communications student became editor-in-chief of the student newspaper in August.
Jose Gonzalez, who served as sports editor of Campus Current last semester, said he plans for the newspaper to be fun, created by good people and supportive of professional advancement during his term as editor-in-chief.
Gonzalez added it’s an honor to take on the role.
“It does mean a lot, because I did put a lot of hard work into it,” Gonzalez said. “I’m feeling pretty confident, pretty excited.”
Gonzalez replaced dual-enrolled student Tomi Brunton, who was editor for two semesters before moving to the position of managing editor at AACC’s journal of the arts, Amaranth. Brunton remains on the Campus Current staff as a reporter.
Sharon O’Malley, the paper’s faculty adviser, said Gonzalez is smart, reliable and a good journalist.
“He writes with speed and accuracy,” O’Malley, a journalism professor, said. “He’s friendly. He’s fun. People like him. And I think that’s exactly what we need at the helm of Campus Current.”
O’Malley said the newspaper is starting the year with a small staff, as most of last year’s team graduated in May, but she thinks it will be “a fantastic year.”
“We are basically coming back with … a very small handful of people,” O’Malley said. “But in terms of the core group that we already have, I have every confidence that they’re going to be able to pull it off, no matter how small the staff is in the beginning. And I also have every confidence that the staff is going to grow big.”
Two associate editors will join Gonzalez on the editorial staff: second-year communications student Waleska Cruz and second-year computer science student Divine Mesumbe.
Cruz said Gonzalez is “perfect for the job” of editor-in-chief.
“He’s very smart and he’s a reliable person, and he’s really easy to talk to,” Cruz said. “He gets things done.”
Mesumbe said the editors are a “very good team” during an news-filled year.
“This is going to be a very productive semester,” Mesumbe said. “It’s an election year. It’s, you know, the Olympics year. … [There’s] a lot of stuff is going on.”