If you don't know me, my name is Bethany and I am the editor in chief of Molloy College's community of Odyssey. While I just recently became both a content creator for Odyssey as well as the editor in chief for my community and can't pretend to be an expert writer or editor, I do my best as both. Even for more experienced EICs, I'm sure it can be difficult sometimes. In order to assure you, my fellow content creators, of my good intentions, I've created a list of ten things your EIC wants you to know.
1. I will not always agree with your views/opinions.
Yes, I may not always agree with you. However, being the mature person I like to think I am, I will never call you out on anything. I may state that I don't disagree with you, should the subject come up or you ask me my opinion, but while I respectfully disagree, I will not disrespect you. My job is to help your voice be heard, regardless of whether I agree with you or not. If everyone thought the same way, there would be no point in writing articles on anything.
2. You can always approach me if you need help with anything.
As your EIC, I hope that you are comfortable asking me for help. Whether you need help coming up with a topic for the week, trying to format your article correctly, or CMS is giving you tons of issues, I will do my best to help you. As a member of the team, every one of my creators are important to the community, and I'll do whatever I can to help make your experience a great one. If you ever want to talk about anything else not Odyssey related, I'll be here for that as well. I want you guys to feel like I'm an approachable person and I've already had the pleasure of talking to several of the creators on our team about things other than Odyssey. I want to get to know all of you guys outside of the editor/creator relationship.
3. I love reading your articles.
A few of you have expressed to me that you feel badly when you remember that I have so many articles to edit. Being editor in chief does mean that I have to edit your articles, but it doesn't mean that I don't enjoy doing it. I get to read all of your articles before anyone else, and every week I am so impressed with the quality of content you continue to put out. Please don't feel badly- if I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't be doing it.
4. I get really excited when an especially good article is submitted.
All of your articles are great, but sometimes an especially great article comes my way. When that happens, I do nerd out, and get super excited about it. How cool is it that one of the creators on my team wrote something so awesome!?
5. Please don't expect me to edit your article immediately after you've submitted it.
I do my best to edit articles as they come in, and sometimes I am able to edit your article the same day you submit it, if not within a few hours of your submission. Unfortunately, I do work and I am taking classes, so I will not always be able to do so. If your article isn't edited immediately, it doesn't mean I forgot about it, it just means I haven't had a chance to edit it.6. I struggle with finding a topic sometimes, too.
Hopefully you don't think that you're the only one who sometimes struggles with coming up with a topic for the week. I wasn't hired as editor in chief because I have an infinite amount of topics in my brain just waiting to be written about. So don't stress too much when you're having trouble coming up with a topic.
7. Never feel embarrassed about anything you want to write about.
If you want to write about something, then write about it. You might have to be prepared for any potential negative reactions, but chances are that if you thought it was important enough to be written about, someone else thinks the same thing.
8. When I reject your articles, it isn't because I didn't like it. I promise.
When I reject your articles, there's a 99 percent chance it was rejected because of a simple formatting error or something small like that. I don't like rejecting articles, but sometimes I don't have a choice. So just remember that I never reject articles out of spite. I am not that petty.
9. Our managing editor is awesome.
I wouldn't be able to do any of this without our managing editor. To Conor and all of the other managing editors, you rock. Thanks for being there when I text you with questions because someone on the team asked me and I don't know the answer. Thanks for editing our articles, making sure I'm doing my job, and helping me out with anything and everything I may need.
10. I hope you love this as much as I do.
When all is said and done, I love being your EIC. I can only hope you enjoy being a part of Odyssey as much as I do.
