My goodbye as Editor-In-Chief of The Tower

By Craig Epstein | Published by May 8, 2020

I can still remember walking around the Harwood Arena and meeting with the various clubs/organizations during Kean University’s freshman orientation. Going into college, I knew I wanted to be a journalist so I had to find out how I was going to get my start. And, after searching for a bit I came across the Editor-In-Chief at the time, Rebecca Panico, who explained to me what The Tower is and how I could join.

Beginning my journey at The Tower as a volunteer, I had some prior knowledge about what it meant to be a journalist thanks to my time at Colonia High School. However, my writing and reporting still had room for improvement and it was thanks to the knowledge and patience of our faculty advisers, Professor Lauro and Professor DeSocio, that I was able to learn and grow over the years both as a journalist and as a person. I am lucky enough to say that I have been able to learn from them when it comes to matters regarding school as well as ones that deal with the world beyond it and I look forward to continuing to learn from them even when my time in college has come to an end.

At The Tower, I was interested in covering sports and I got the opportunity to work closely with then Sports Editor Sara Ridgway. Eventually becoming the Editor-In-Chief herself, Sara is one of the most hardworking people I have ever met. Now a graduate student, one would be hard-pressed to ever find Sara not doing something whether it’s professional work, school assignments, or volunteer activities. The example that she continues to set both as a student and as a person is something that I find remarkable and played a key role in helping me transition to Sports Editor and eventually to Editor-In-Chief.

Along with Sara, I was also fortunate enough to be able to work alongside The Tower’s previous Editor-In-Chief Josh Rosario. I am proud to call Josh a colleague and the type of person I feel I can go to with anything. His journey as a college student not only proves how driven he is to succeed, but he also helped provide me with many valuable lessons during my time at Kean as well. Whether it was talking about school work, articles for The Tower, or movies and television shows, Josh made my transition into college much easier than he will ever realize and I am lucky to be able to call him my friend.

Becoming the Sports Editor in my sophomore year created an exciting experience and provided me with the opportunity to improve in another aspect of journalism as well. In addition, it gave me the chance to work closely and form a bond with a number of The Tower’s staff members at the time including Rafaela Teixeira, Kiara Mays, Petruce Jean-Charles, Rose Marie Kitchen, Cody Louie, Alex Wisniewski, and many more. Whether it was sports, news, movies, television shows, comics, or pro wrestling, I am always going to cherish the times where we would just sit around The Tower newsroom and talk about whatever it was we wanted to talk about that day.

While taking over as the Editor-In-Chief might have been a daunting task at first, I was confident that the people who surrounded me would make the journey as enjoyable as possible. Whether it was Steven Merrill, Erin McGuinness, Lena Zhu, Salimah McCullough, Zoe Strozewski, Wynter Aiken or Kelly Contreras, I could not thank each one of them enough for being as good of a crew than I could have ever asked for. Even though they come from different backgrounds, they each have the same drive to succeed and become more knowledgeable every day, which is the type of trait that I would associate with many of the students who come to Kean as well.

Finally, I just wanted to thank all of the staff members who I have worked with over the years. While I cannot list all of their names at the risk of this being the longest article of all time, they know who they are and I just wanted to let them know that The Tower’s continued success would not have been possible without them and I wish them nothing but good fortune and prosperity as well.

Although my story as an undergraduate is coming to end, I am excited to see how my successor as Editor-In-Chief, Zoe Strozewski, along with her editors and staff are going to write their next chapters. Much like how I always say to them at the end my meetings/emails, if they ever have any questions or concerns they can feel free to reach out to me but I have no doubt they will continue the success The Tower has been able to build up over the years and I was lucky enough to be a part of.

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