James Witherow is the new Editor of the Perspective for the 2008-09 school year as he takes over for Summer Gemmati who graduated.

“Being named editor is a huge honor to me! I’ve put a lot of hard work into the paper over the past year and a half and really enjoy what I do,” Witherow said. “It’s going to be hard in the footsteps of two great editors before me, Lisa [Cialfi] and Summer, but I think I can bring some new things to the table and hopefully make the paper even better.

Witherow follows Lisa Cialfi and Summer Gematti who has run the paper the past two school years respectively. He plans on building off the success the paper has had the past two years.

“Over the past 2 years we’ve really become a staple in the Medaille community and I look to keep that going all through next year. There might be some minor tweaks here and there but overall I want to just keep the Perspective going on the track it’s on now, and that is to keep the students informed and to be kind of a second voice of the students to the faculty and staff,” Witherow said.

Witherow calls his a sports freak but he doesn’t plan on letting his love for sport, get in the way of his responsibilities as editor.

“Sports will stay about the same as it is now. The athletic department and teams are getting better and we recognize this, however, we don’t have as many teams as a lot of schools and it’s not as big here as in other schools so for right now it will stay about four pages. However, as we do with playoffs and NCAA tournaments, we will continue to send out sports extra pages via e-mail to the students and faculty as well as keep everyone up to date on the latest on conference championships, ECAC tournaments and NCAA tournaments.”

Next year should be a good year for the newspaper as it continues to go in the same direction as it has the past two years.

Medaille College now has a magazine. The Perspective staff put together a magazine a debuted it in the last week of May.

“The Perspective staff decided to put together a magazine because we wanted to put out another publication that the college would enjoy. We thought a magazine was a great idea. We wanted to make sure that the content of the magazine would appeal to a wide audience. We wanted everyone on campus to be able to pick up the magazine and find an article they could relate to and enjoy,” Executive Editor Summer Gemmati said.

It was a collaborative idea from everyone in the paper. We saw other school newspapers did it and thought it would be a fun project. It was all we thought it was going to be and more, a lot more,” Features Editor, James Witherow said.

A handful of students on the Perspective staff were also on the staff of INcite. For editorial positions on the magazine, interviews were held.

The magazine will continue next year, and most likely come out next Spring. Eventually the staff would like to publish the magazine once each semester according to Gemmati.

The rest of the magazine staff consisted of Lisa Murphy who was the adviser, Megan Fitzgerald who was the editor-in-chief, Nick Calandra was photo director James Witherow, Stephanie Gemmati and Chris Musial were features editors.

“I did the magazine because I thought it would be a nice change of pace from the newspaper. The paper is very strict on rules and structure and a magazine you can be a lot more creative and explore more with layout and writing. I just thought it would be a nice change up from the usual and thats what it was, and it came out great,” Witherow said.

“It is definitely going to continue next year, Megan Fitzgerald is going to be the Editor in Chief of the Magazine and I have no doubt that with all she put into it this year, it’s going to be even better next year! We are hoping that it will eventually come out every semester but for right now it’s going to be a once a year thing,” Witherow said.

“I heard that a lot of people on campus were really impressed with the magazine and I am hopeful that the entire campus was able to find an article or two that they were really interested in considering that the main reason we choice such a range of articles was to appeal to a wide audience base,” Gemmati said.

Medaille College will hold its undergraduate and graduate commencement ceremonies at Kleinhans Music Hall on Friday, May 16 which only less than a week away. Parents, friends, siblings and well wishers will all be present to watch the seniors get that college diploma. The undergraduate student ceremony, honoring students completing bachelor of arts and bachelor of science programs, is scheduled for 7 p.m. Peter Giambrone of the 1978 graduating class will speak to the graduating students. Come and watch your communication student friends graduate and move one step closer to the next faze of their lives.

As graduation approaches, many seniors are looking for jobs and career opportunity as they take their last classes at Medaille. We wanted to spotlight some of our seniors in these last few weeks of school. For next few weeks we will profile a senior in the department.

Summer Gemmati was the editor of the Medaille College newspaper this year, The Perspective. The paper continued to be success this year and even debuted a magazine in May.

“I loved being editor of the paper. It was such a great experience and I learned so much. It really helped me grow as a person and the staff was amazing. Without them it wouldn’t have been possible. I enjoyed working with everyone on the staff and am so proud of the newspaper and the magazine,” Gemmati said. “I took the editor position because I thought it would be great experience and I really wanted to give back to Medaille. I thought what would be better then to continue helping in the growth of the college’s award winning student newspaper. I honestly couldn’t have imagined my last year in college without the newspaper.”

Gemmati is one of the seniors that is a little nervous about graduation and what lies after she walks in May.

“I have been completely nervous about graduation the entire year. Time was flying and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do career wise. I started looking on Buffalojobfinder.com in November and applied for jobs I thought I was qualified for. I was really interesting in marketing, event planning or public relations. I wanted a career that would keep my on my toes, challenge me and allow me to think independently and voice my ideas. After months of looking, I feel that I have finally found what I was looking for. I will be the Marketing Administrative Assistant at Jaceckle Fleischmann. I am so excited to start my career and feel that Medaille College and the professors in the Communications department helped me tremendously,” Gemmati said.

Gemmati really enjoyed what she learned from the professors in the department and the advisors as well.

“I enjoyed the hands on projects I was assigned in Broadcasting with Lisa Van Valkinburgh and Promotions and PR with Lou Pozantides. I also learned a great deal from both Lou and Lisa’s public speaking courses. On top of my coursework, I must say the internship programs great. I think it is great that the college requires all Communication students to complete three internships before graduation. I think the experience you get with them is great and you have a opportunity to make some great connections. Also, the newspaper has been a big part of my college experience along with Lisa Murphy who really helped me strengthen my writing.”

Gemmati is also getting married in December so everyone in the Communications department wishes her the best of luck.

As graduation approaches, many seniors are looking for jobs and career opportunity as they take their last classes at Medaille. We wanted to spotlight some of our seniors in these last few weeks of school. For next few weeks we will profile a senior in the department.

Most of the seniors have enjoyed their four years at Medaille but some seniors haven’t been here for all four year.

“What I like best about Medaille are the best friends that I’ve made. I transferred to Medaille because I like the small class sized and the media department internship program,” Abby Seitz said.

Lou Pozantides and Lisa Van Valkinburgh are the most popular professors in the communications department and are a huge part of it and there are some students that want to become teachers because of them.

“My career goals are to finish grad school and to keep teaching at the college level,” Seitz said. “I’m already lined up for a job for after graduation. I’m going to be a teacher assistant at the College of Charleston while I attend grad school.”

Most seniors are excited about graduation and Seitz is one of them.

“I’m excited to graduate so I can move on into my career and adult life.”

Seitz enjoyed the communications department as most graduating seniors do but every senior has their own reason why they enjoyed the department at Medaille.

“The best part of the communications department is that it’s small. I got to know all my teachers & they helped me in school & in life.”

For us Seniors it’s the last Thursday At Medaille

I sit here and reflect on my past 4 years…..wow what a wild ride. The countless classes, tests, exams, assignments, stacks of books read, relationships formed, and all the knowledge ( same used more than others). I still don’t think that it’s hit me yet that graduation is right around the corner. I know it will be an emotional time for me because I’m the last of 4 children to graduate from college ( my parents also did a little dance when they signed the last tuition check). For those of you that will be there…my family will be the loudest people in the whole place when I walk across that stage.

I sit and wonder though if I’m really ready for the next step. For some of us it will be entering the work force & for some it will be to continue our education in grad school. While the progression in imminent, who is ever really ready for all that life has to throw at us? Some of us will undoubtedly cling to our youth as long as we can and for others we will just be launched into full fledged adulthood and all that it comes with.

I say to all of us….SEIZE THE DAY!!! These are the best years of our lives (high school smich school). Let’s live it up!!! Embrace what we have today and live for what tomorrow may bring to us. Don’t be scared of the unknown……take on the challenges and show the world what you’re made of. Don’t be afraid to fail some times, in life it’s inevitable, but pick your self up, brush it off, and keep charging up the mountain of life….It’s an adventure. And if you ever remember one thing…..don’t sweat the small things in life cause no one ever gets out alive!!!

Abby Kate