I was recently in the lobby at Lafayette, the Honors dorm, when I heard someone say that the writing in our paper was sub-par.

“I know it’s a college paper, and it’s not that serious,” the subject said. “But I know people in high school that write better than this. It’s just unprofessional.”

While the student congratulated our staff and declared we were “definitely better than year’s past,” based on his prior statements I couldn’t see how he really believed that.

College is a learning experience. Those of us on staff are learning what we need to be doing when we graduate — to hire professionals to run a college newspaper would be a waste of their time. To think we will be criticized for learning within our positions is ludicrous and petty.

Countless times I’ve walked into a room and heard someone complain about the content or opinions written in the paper. Countless times I’ve heard them refer to a specific person on staff as being the “control freak” or “agenda-pusher.” Countless times I’ve wondered if there is any consideration on how readers can change these ideas.

The fact is, we have six editors doing six different jobs, all of us trying to come up with what we think this campus needs to know about. When we hear people complain, we’ve learned to take it as constructive criticism; however, I am of the opinion that it shouldn’t be all about us.

This is your newspaper — this is your campus. If you have something you think is important that we should talk about, tell us. If we should cover an event, talk about something in the news or get more student opinion, tell us. If we should focus more attention on writing style and structure, tell us. By staying quiet to our staff yet talking smack behind our backs, readers are doing a disservice to the paper and to every other person who reads the paper.

Disagreeing with something written is fine — that’s going to happen, I understand. Disagreeing with the paper as a whole, however, is not fine. We all know the quote from Mahatma Ghandi, “be the change you wish to see in the world.” So if you think changes need to be made to the paper, come write. Come talk to us and offer feedback. Come give us story ideas.

This is a community paper and it’s high time the campus starts to treat it as such.