A message from your SPJ president, Natalia Ryzak:
To my Fellow J School Students,
First, I want to congratulate the MS students who have handed in their master’s projects today — you all did it!!! Congratulations!!!
Now, I want to address that we understand these are very tense and difficult times. Please know that SPJ is a resource for you all and please feel free to contact me or anyone on SPJ whenever you want. We are here for you and we share your distress.
That said, we are facing unprecedented times and we want to assure you that we have been in constant contact with both career services, who are working day and night on our behalf, and the J-School administration. Tentatively, we are scheduling a virtual Town Hall with our J-School Deans in the upcoming weeks where they can address further questions and concerns. And please feel free to start sending me some questions you have.
I know this is hard. I know this is challenging, but we will persevere. The show will go on! We want to make this reality as positive as possible and SPJ is dedicated in doing just that. We are constantly talking about ways we can still have a great and uplifting rest of the semester and that is exactly what we’ll do.
And to our friends who have traveled here from overseas for this year of education: This is the furthest thing that you or any of us could have predicted. Your pain is our pain, and we are all heartbroken by everything that this virus has taken from us.
But please know this: You are New Yorkers now, too. And if there is one quality that defines us here in this city, it is not frenzy, or confusion, or fear. It is tenacity.
As in times past, New Yorkers will rise to the occasion of this challenge — take it from me, someone who has lived here for my entire life — we will face it and emerge stronger than before.
Our courage, hope, and faith in each other is what will keep us going. As reporters, we are the light that illuminates the public’s knowledge of events like these. But, as friends and as one J-School family, now we need to be that light for each other. I know that we will be.
Natalia
ner2138@columbia.edu