by Christina V. Tormey '98

I spent much of the time during my own four years as an Ithaca College undergraduate working at the Ithacan as a writer, features editor, and finally editor in chief. I remember staying in the office until 2:00 a.m. with pneumonia to write headlines for my section and wrapping up an issue at 5:00 a.m., only to stay in the office to start a class assignment due by 10:00 a.m. that day. Nearly three years later, I'm back in 267 Park Hall, visiting the current students who work on the paper.

At 11:00 on a Wednesday night, editors of the Ithacan sit around like ER docs waiting at the ambulance bay for victims of a 10-car pileup. The office is eerily quiet; the temperature seems to have dropped a few degrees. In just 13 hours the same editors will be sitting in class half asleep while 5,500 copies of the paper make their way into the hands of students, staff, faculty, administrators, and subscribers.

But right now editor in chief Michael Bloomrose '02, absent-mindedly toying with a Slinky, walks from his office in Park 268 to the newsroom, just one door down, to check on the progress of the last few pages. The faint smell of the bubble gum he's anxiously chewing follows him. Managing editor Kylie Yerka '02 studies a checklist taped to a tall, metal cabinet. Each of the list's 32 rows represents a page of the paper. Editors initial spaces in the columns to confirm when stories are in, copyedited, laid out, and proofread. If the final square is filled in with yellow highlighter, it means the page is pasted up and complete.