It’s been said that the more things change the more they stay the same, but hopefully this adage can be reduced to little more than the bad cliche it is.

As with everything else on campus, the end of the school year brings tremendous and often necessary change and The Daily Eastern News is no different. This past week was known as changeover and is a time when students are appointed new positions in this publication. Hopefully with this new regime will come great change.

While I cannot speak for any section but my own, I would personally like to see a number of changes come to this editorial page in the coming semester.

By and large, the editorial page of any newspaper is the place for staff members to voice opinions, the editorial board to confront any issue facing the readership and act as the forum for readers of the paper to voice concern, outrage, contempt or applause.

While all of those who have taken this position before me have performed admirably, a few changes are necessary to further serve readers or any concern of the university.

First and foremost, the editorial page has traditionally been a place for columnists to voice opinions. While journalists are supposed to remain impartial at all times and give an unbiased account of the news, a column is quite possibly the easiest way for a writer to shed light on a specific issue or bring attention to a cause or thought. Sadly, however, this is often forgotten as politics, social commentary or awareness are eschewed in favor of topics like road trips, the need to “treasure our time in college” or mundane personal stories.

While all of these ideas have a place, that place is a personal journal or one’s own head, not a college newspaper aiming to serve readers in any capacity.

The point of an opinion column is to actually have an opinion, not to sit the fence for 500 words and make a bland declaration near the end.

While personal stories are great, if any of our lives were genuinely interesting enough to read about, FOX would be co-opting them for a movie of the week as we speak. But this is simply not the case.

The other primary element to this page is the daily editorial expressing the views of the editorial board. While this is a place to expose the campus to various issues, it is even more effective when the board can consistently focus on topics like campus politics and local happenings rather than things like blood drives or volunteerism. While these are still valuable issues, editorials need to shed light on topics students may not investigate on their own or won’t surmise through simple common sense.

The last component of this page is the letters to the editor section which ultimately represent the voice of any reader willing to pitch in his or her two cents. While I would like to think the collective staff of the News has an idea as to the concerns of the student body, the truth is most of us wile away hours a day in a newsroom making less than grade school sweatshop workers in East Asia. It’s not exactly the place to be and still remain plugged into student life.

Without letters and guest columns, this page wouldn’t accurately represent Eastern and this staff alone couldn’t possibly hope to do so. With no disrespect to those above me or those who have come before me, I think these changes are necessary to improve this publication and the service The Daily Eastern News attempts to provide.