By Maya Liquigan

December 11, 2021

If you are reading this, then there is a good chance you want to be more involved in our school. Luckily for you, you are in the right place.

As The Observer, we report the latest news and updates all around the school. Our staff follows stories for the newest updates on campus, attends school events, and follows our sports teams throughout their season. Our advisor, Professor Nick Obradovich, helps guide the staff in creating, editing, and publishing each newsletter.

The Observer staff is led by our Editor-in-Chief, Shelby Taylor, and our Editor of Photography and Social Media, Dominic Di Palermo. Taylor and Palermo help our team stay on track for our stories and help with any issues to make sure it all runs smoothly. The rest of our staff members comprise our staff writers and photographers.

To make sure we keep up to date with Elgin Community College’s latest news, our staff chooses stories that share the most important information with our audience. We have a variety of stories including hard news stories, human interest stories, and opinion pieces. Along with our stories, our photographers make sure to take pictures for every occasion, covering all aspects of ECC.

We cover hard news stories for the most recent on-campus updates like “The Vaccine Mandate: What to Expect” by Ava Pollock and “The Wellness Center welcomes new professional Jasmine Young” by Megan Huibregste. Samantha Leon wrote about faculty success in her article, “Four ECC faculty members earn doctorates,” and we also covered updates on the school’s safety procedures in the article “Will COVID-19 procedures change in spring 2022?”

Some of the events that our staff has covered include ECC’s Rainbow Brunch by Desiree Oliveros and Latinx Heritage Month events covered by Taylor, the staff’s Editor in Chief. Opinion pieces by Ava Pollock include a review on the movie “A Silent Voice” and her thoughts on the game Cookie Run.

Our photographers help provide visuals for all stories and create galleries for all of ECC’s events. Di Palermo works with the other staff photographers including Lina Fasihi, Gwen Sihanath, Lance Lagoni, and Kavya Patel to provide photos for our newsletter.

Our staff follows the long line of Observer writers and photographers before us. They show their success in our newsletter by earning multiple awards for state journalism conferences. In the spring 2021 semester, the staff earned nine awards at the Illinois Community College Journalism Association. We continue in their steps and report the best we can for our school.

If you are interested in joining our staff, register for JRN134-400. This course is free and is worth the same as a one-credit hour course. For any questions, contact us at elginobserver@gmail.com.