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Hello and happy summer! I hope everyone has had a good couple of months since you last heard from me.

Our Volume 115 staffers have fully taken over and are already off to a great start. While The Hatchet will take a break from printing until students return to campus in the fall, editors are still busy writing daily for The Hatchet and working at internships. Olivia Anderson, The Hatchet’s photo editor, is working as a photography intern at AARP Publications. Sarah Roach, an assistant news editor, is interning at Hearst Newspapers as a reporting intern. Senior news editor Cayla Harris is also in D.C. working at the National Press Foundation, and Allison Kwon, a research assistant, is a legal intern for the New York Police Department.

We’re also beginning to plan our next alumni event:  an outing to a Nationals baseball game. If you’re interested in coming, please fill out the survey here so we can find a date in the next month that works for the group. We need to get a decently sized group together to get group seating, so please let me know as soon as possible if you’re interested.

As always, I want to hear from you with your thoughts, ideas and life updates. Please email me at alumni@gwhatchet.com.

Zach Montellaro (Class of 2016)

 

Campus news

 

Last month, a group of students began a push for the University to retire GW’s nickname, the Colonials. The students launched a petition on the Student Association’s website, which recently added an entire section devoted to student petitions. Because the petition garnered more than 500 signatures, the SA president is required to respond and said she would work with students, faculty and administrators to determine “available options.” New names that have been floated around include the Hippos, the Revolutionaries or the Riverhorses. Thoughts?

The Hatchet’s photo team took great shots of graduates at commencement ceremonies last month. The Hatchet sells these photos to graduates, so if you know anyone in the Class of 2018, be sure to pass them the link.

The culture section published its annual Colonial Inauguration guide with tips for incoming freshmen, so check that out as well. Although it may leave you feeling old!

Five players from last year’s men’s basketball roster have graduated or transferred out, leaving 10 returners. The team also added a new assistant coach last week. Head coach Maurice Joseph talked with sports editor Barbara Alberts about what the team will be focusing on in the offseason.

Alumni Q&A

 

Paul Connolly, the deputy bureau chief at Bloomberg BNA, served as editor in chief the year The Hatchet became independent from the University in 1993. Paul spoke to assistant news editor Leah Potter about his time at The Hatchet and how it prepared him for his career.

Q: What led you to join The Hatchet?

A: I knew I needed to get writing experience, and The Hatchet was a great place to get it. The first weekend of school they had an open house my freshman year, so I went and checked it out. Also, I was a work study student, so I needed a job on campus, and they had a job for an editorial assistant. I applied for the job and got the position. This is back in the ‘90s before the internet really was a thing, so you would clip stories and put them in files so editors could go back and refer to them. Again, nicely fitting with my news junky side, just being around the paper, and hanging around the office a lot, I got to know more of the editors and started writing more and more, and then just got more involved throughout my GW career.

Q: What is your favorite memory from your time on staff?

A: We used to have our offices in the Marvin Center, and I remember playing frisbee in the hallways at like 2 a.m., typical college-kid stuff like that. Those are the G-rated stories, anyway.

One April Fools edition after the editor in chief before me, Deborah Solomon (Class of 1994), went home, we took stacks of old Hatchet issues that needed to be recycled, crumpled them up and threw them in her office, and totally filled her office from floor to ceiling with crumpled up issues of The Hatchet. Silly stuff like that, those are things you can’t really do when you’re in a grown-up job.

Q: What do you do now and how has The Hatchet prepared you for your career?

A: I feel that working on The Hatchet helps you lay that foundation for the skills that you’re going to need if you want to be a journalist. In particular, I’m the deputy bureau chief at Bloomberg BNA. We are a unit of Bloomberg LP which runs Bloomberg News, the big, giant media company. My day to day job is, I’m the number two person in the newsroom in our offices. We produce four main products, Bloomberg Tax, Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Government and Bloomberg Environment.

A lot of what I learned being an editor at The Hatchet applies to my current job. How to work with reporters, how to work with editors, how to understand the needs of your readers, what they want to read about, what they’re interested in, what they’ll click on, what they won’t click on – because you learn all of that at The Hatchet.

Alumni news

Gabriel Muller (Class of 2014) recently finished his first semester as a professor at American University. He taught "Writing for Communications,” a required class for journalism, broadcast and PR students. Check out the picture of him and his class. Rachel Smilan-Goldstein (Class of 2016) is getting her doctorate from UVA in American politics.

Two recent graduates also got new jobs. Melissa Holzberg (Class of 2018) is working as a researcher at Meet the Press, and Andrew Goudsward (Class of 2018) is a breaking news reporter at the Asbury Park Press. Brandon Butler (Class of 2007) started at the International Data Company as a senior research analyst at the beginning of the year after working at Network World for six years as senior editor. And Zach Montellaro (yup, writing about myself, sorry everyone!) joined the campaign team at POLITICO and is writing the Morning Score newsletter.

Nora Princiotti (Class of 2016) won a 2018 Dateline award from the Society of Professional Journalists, D.C. chapter, for her story “Staying Grounded” for the Washington Times. Josh Solomon (Class of 2016) wrote a feature piece about a group that provides support to those who have lost loved ones to suicide for the Greenfield Recorder.

Job opportunities


National Geographic is hiring a junior graphic editor. If you’re interested in applying, email alumni@gwhatchet.com to get connected to Hatchet alumni currently at the company. The Greenfield Recorder in Massachusetts is hiring a general assignment reporter. For this position, I can also connect you with an alumnus at the company, so email me at alumni@gwhatchet.com. The Hill newspaper is hiring a communications director. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York is hiring a senior communications manager.
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