Welcome back to another school year! We anticipate that this will be a big year for our campus, especially with a record-high round of budget cuts, a potential tuition hike because of those cuts, plus the every-10-year reaccreditation process. and quite a bit more. Yep, there’s a lot going on this semester.

Don’t worry, though. We’re ready, so you don’t have to be. Just pick up a copy of The Spectator every Thursday at your favorite newsstand, and for the first time ever, you can count on daily updates from our Web site, www.spectatornews.com. Otherwise, follow us on Twitter and Facebook, you social media-ites.

This will also be a big year for The Spectator itself, because, like most other newspapers, we’re finally taking the plunge into the next century of technology and media trends. You probably noticed I didn’t suggest you pick up a copy of The Spectator on Mondays. That’s because you wouldn’t find a new issue then even if you wanted to. But that’s a good thing – now we’re able to bring you a daily dose of campus news, so you don’t have to wait. We now print just once a week (Thursdays) so we can focus more of our attention online. Make sure you register and sign up for our breaking news alerts and the e-mail edition of our Thursday print issue.

We’ve been preparing all summer to better let you know what’s happening on campus, within the UW System, as well as what’s relevant to students in the city and in the state. After a long summer, we’ve been busy brushing up on our reporting, interviewing, writing and video editing skills.

We’ve just hired a computer-savvy student to help us redesign our Web site, www.spectatornews.com. We hope to be able to provide you with a much more user-friendly Web experience by the end of this semester, if not sooner. Until then, one thing you’ll notice right away is more interactive content – videos, polls, slideshows, links and the answers to the Sudoku puzzles you love to sneak into your lectures.

I’ve heard from many of you that you love our feature sections. But last year, we sometimes struggled with thinking of new health, financial and human-interest stories that we hadn’t already written about five times. To keep things fresh and interesting, we’ve combined our general-interest Showcase section with our entertainment Scene and Money/Health sections into a more cohesive section, now called Currents.

Why Currents? Not only were we inspired by the mighty Chippewa River that flows through our campus, we also want to keep you connected with all of the “current” entertainment news and events on campus and in the greater Eau Claire community. Get it? Yeah, we thought it was clever, too. So now Currents will feature mostly arts and entertainment articles, with an article or two about health and finances, and some of the randomness from Showcase thrown in.

If you want to get involved with your newspaper, we welcome you to share your thoughts in our articles’ comment sections online, a letter to the editor or a column in our opinion section. Lord knows there’s enough for you to have an opinion about. Or if you’re a budding journalist or photographer yourself, you could be one of The Spectator’s latest and greatest freelancers. Our first freelancer meeting will be next week on Sept. 10. Let me know if you want details.

Drop us a line, Tweet or Facebook post anytime about what you think of our changes and what we could do to improve.

We’re a student newspaper, and just like all students, we’re still learning. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, but we have high standards for our staff members and expect you to let us know if/when we need to set the record straight.

If you don’t tell us you’re unhappy about something we write or how we write it, we can’t correct it and prevent it from happening in the future.

If you feel you’ve been misquoted, misrepresented or feel your views are missing from The Spectator’s pages, tell us right away. Contact me directly at [email protected], call us at 836-4416 or stop by our new, relocated office at Hibbard 104. We really do value your input and are always open to suggestions. If you have story ideas, we would gladly take those, too.

We care about this campus and you – our peers and readers. Help us serve you better.

Boschma, a senior print journalism major and editor-in-chief of The Spectator, can be reached at [email protected].