From the Editors

And, alas, before it even felt like it started, the summer is nearly over. \nAt the Indiana Daily Student, our summer is especially close to its finish, as today is our last daily edition of the newspaper (we still have the annual Welcome Back edition, which will hit newsstands Aug. 18) But, yes, yesterday was our last production day, our last budget meeting and our last deadline crunch of the semester. \nSome of our staffers will continue in their current positions in the fall, and some will take new ones. Trevor Brown, our campus editor, will be joined in his role by current managing editor, Carrie Ritchie. Switching things up, I will get to fulfill a dream of mine by covering the men's basketball team and editing the reviews section of the WEEKEND magazine. We will also sadly be losing various staffers to graduation -- much of our WEEKEND staff, including its editor, Rob O'Connor. Reviews Editor Ty Schrock and Art Director Maggie Stahler will also be moving on. We are sorry to see them go.\nIt's certainly no secret that many students leave Bloomington in the summer. Whether to complete internships, to head home for the routine summer job or to graduate, the summer tends to feel a little vacant around here, even with 10,000 of you still around. \nAt the IDS, we're no different. Some of our best and brightest took off this summer, graduating and taking jobs at various publications or working as interns across the country. Not cringing from those personnel losses, I believe this summer's staff -- with all of its new faces -- has maintained the sort of quality news-gathering that makes this student newspaper so consistently special. \nThere is a wide range of things I believe we covered well:\nOur coverage of James Hardy's charges in Fort Wayne ("James Hardy released from jail after alleged domestic incident," May 22) was prompt and accurate, we worked to report a solid Adam Herbert potential early resignation story ("Herbert may consider stepping down early," June 26), and then followed that coverage with up-to-the-minute updates from the ensuing board of trustees meeting. Though that coverage certainly wasn't enthralling, we believe it was eternally necessary. Finally, we hopped to the Kelvin Sampson fallout and then covered the potential loopholes in his sanctions, a valuable piece in understanding IU's basketball future ("NCAA bans Sampson from calling or meeting for 1 year," and "Loopholes may lesson Sampson's recruiting ban," May 26).\nIn fairness, there were things we could have done better. While our coverage of Gov. Mitch Daniels' highway initiatives was persistent and interesting, at times we didn't present all potential sides to the story. Also, we might have played up certain events without sufficient cause. One example of this is "The Da Vinci Code" spread (May 22) in our Arts section.\nIn all, though, it was a gratifying semester to be a journalist at the IDS. More importantly, we hope it was a gratifying semester to be a reader of the IDS. \nWhether you were a regular reader on both Monday and Thursday (and on the Web) or just picked up the paper on your way into class, read it for a few minutes and got back to thinking about how much nicer life would be were it not 97 degrees outside, we hope you got the impression that, above all else, we were here for you. \nAnd so, just as it began, with a whoosh and a thud and some fingers on keys, the semester ends. See you in the fall.