Join the Editorial Board

The Wall Street Journal’s great editorial writer Vermont Royster once quipped that anyone who picks up the editorial pen cannot hope to be more than “professional amateur” who “is rarely an expert on anything” but “is forced to learn a little about many things.”

Royster was right on one account—anyone who casts a wide intellectual net will be drawn to editorial writing. But what gives editorialists and their writings vim and vigor—and what Royster had in spades—is effusive passion. The best editorial writers have the sort of devil-may-care attitude that calls them to write just what they think, to clash argumentative sabers with the world around them and to press their own transient but intentional marks onto the communities they live in.

All this is why we’ve put down our own editorial pen today: to invite anyone stirred by Royster’s remarks to apply to join the Editorial Board for the remainder of the 2011-2012 academic year.

The Chronicle’s Editorial Board became independent from the rest of the paper in 2006. We give pride of place to this independence: Our only bias is toward the force of the better argument. The Board meets twice a week to lay out and debate its arguments. Majority opinion decides where we plant our rhetorical flag, and individual members write editorials in turn. From behind the windows of 201 Flowers, we argue about—and occasionally change—every part of Duke that matters to us.

We have taken Royster’s maxim to heart this year. So far, our unsigned editorials have exposed heavy-handed student conduct policies, challenged the basis of Duke’s expansion abroad and criticized students and administrators alike for veering wide off the road of reason. The topics we have lined up for the rest of year promise to generate even more kinetic discussions.

Editorial writing does not suit the brash, but we do like to swing sensible haymakers. The arena of campus discourse is always looking for new contenders and—if you suffer from an excess of passion, panache and good sense—you will enjoy this fray more than you know. E-mail cka6@duke.edu to join the Editorial Board.