The unsigned editorial represents the opinion of the Editorial Board, which consists of the 2022-2023 student editors.
You—the student reader—have different reasons for picking up the Panther Press.
Maybe you know your name or photo will be featured. Maybe you are looking for coverage of a school event. Maybe you simply want to complete the crossword.
If you’re a senior, you might be excited to see your future college displayed in the final issue of the school year, as has been the practice for the final issues of the last several school years.
It may come as a surprise that the usual college map is not included in our June paper.
College maps, also known as destination maps, display the future institutions and destinations of the student body. The names of post-high school institutions are outlined regionally.
The Panther Press has published student names on the map in some years (2019), and only pins on the map in others (2022). Some of the other school newspapers in our area, like Conestoga or Lower Merion, make quite a showy production of the seniors’ destinations displayed as a list or a graphic.
When the Panther Press staff decides what to include in each issue, our intentions often mirror your own. You want to be represented in the school newspaper, and our journalists want to tell your story.
While college maps appear to holistically represent graduating seniors, they instead shift the focus from student experiences and opinions to college prestige and reputations.
The Panther Press is intended to be about you, not your college.
College maps merely relay the information from social media posts and website data. For the last few final issues of The Panther Press, editors obtained data from the counseling office. The infographic does not acknowledge the individual experiences, thoughts, and opinions of our student body.
As journalists, we strive to find the unexpected and surprising details of a story. We take pride in the journalistic process—pitching ideas, brainstorming, interviewing, writing—because we recognize that each story about students has depth and meaning.
The Editorial Board knows that our readers anticipate and enjoy the college map infographic. However, this year, by curating a spread (page 10) that explores some seniors’ experiences in planning for the next steps, we hope to represent Strath Haven’s graduating seniors while also committing to detailed and purposeful storytelling.
Although every senior won’t be profiled, we hope that after reading about and considering your peers’ experiences, you feel represented, curious, or inspired through these stories. We hope that this senior spread—which otherwise would be filled with a college map—will be a step towards interpersonal connection between students.
The newspaper, and this spread, is a glimpse into how some students decided where they were going and how they got there. It will archive seniors’ stories for younger students’ reference.
As storytellers who are proud of all of the complex, nuanced, and sometimes bumpy roads that Haven students travel, we refuse to add even one more aspect of our school’s culture that promotes competition.
For too long, college maps have not been a celebration of the seniors’ accomplishments, but a time for readers to figure out who is going to the “best” or “worst” school.
So, although there won’t be a college map this year, we hope you still flip to the center spread. We hope you truly celebrate every senior for their experiences and the variety of their future plans, not for their statistics.
