By Kira Schukar ’22
Dear Words Readers,
Every May, The Words’ Senior Editors share their parting words with the community. But if I’m being honest, even though I’ve known about this tradition for the last two years, I’ve been at a loss for words for the entire month of April when I was supposed to be writing to you.
Last week, as I procrastinated this letter, I ventured into The Words archives. I was surprised to find that the Senior Editors’ parting words started so recently—the oldest record I could find was Zeena Fuleihan’s letter in 2018. In the final issues before Zeena’s, editors had written more general senior send offs, but from what I can tell, Zeena was the first to write a dedicated letter to readers. I wasn’t surprised to find that Zeena’s words resonated with my own experience as an editor. From what I can tell, Senior Newsletter Editors for the last four years have given a resounding thanks to the English Department, the community, and their professors here at Macalester. “As I look back on the past four years,” Zeena wrote, “I find myself increasingly grateful for the community and opportunities I found in the English Department.”
It’s hard for me to put myself into the moment that I declared my English major in 2019, the fall of my sophomore year. I sat down in Professor Kaston Tange’s office, and she enthusiastically toured me around the department. I met Jan Beebe for the first time. I was handed a blue t-shirt with a picture of Mary Shelley on the front. I held my hardcover notebook embossed with “Macalester English Major’s Journal.” I felt so nervous on this first tour—excited, too—and a little overwhelmed. Even though I’d taken two English classes already and was already starting to fulfill my period requirements, I hadn’t gotten the chance to make tea in the lounge or stop by for Coffee House on Wednesday nights. The English community felt so vibrant, and I wasn’t sure where I fit into it yet.
Now, more than two years later, the department is my second home. I find myself staying long after I’ve clocked out of my work shift, sipping tea in the lounge or chatting with other student workers. I watch the rain or—let’s be honest—snow pattering against the Old Main window. I’ve written papers here, read novels, made friends, eaten dinners, and drank countless cups of coffee. Some of my closest friends and colleagues are here. When I have nowhere else to go on campus—between classes or before big events—I come to the second floor of Old Main.
The department has given me so much over the last four years—friends, mentors, support for my research, knowledge, and a lifelong love of literature. And I can only hope that, now and in the future, I can give back to the department. As I wrote this letter, I also found myself combing through the articles I’ve written over the last two years. I can remember where I was when I wrote each one. Some were here, in the office; some from my desk at home during our year of remote learning. But all of them ended up in the department, both on the website and in the hard copies of The Words in the lounge.
I think of these old copies like an archive. One of my favorite pastimes when I need a break during my shift is to sift through old issues of The Words (once called The Waverly) to look for alumni whose names I recognize, or introductions from when my professors joined the department. But I’ve made some surprising discoveries, too. Did you know that The Waverly published famous authors’ birthdays every month? In the October ‘09 issue, editors Jens and Meghan told readers, “We need your help. Please tell us what kind of food to have at Department gatherings. We don’t know what kind of food writers eat anymore.” Another article in the December ‘09 issue is titled “The Six Books I Started to Read and Want to Finish But Don’t Have Time Because I’m an English Major.” The old articles are fun and familiar—they remind me that, for more than a decade, English majors have been writing poetry, farewells, and satire.
These articles also remind me that college is a place of transition, where students come and go every four years. Institutional knowledge—knowing our department’s history, experiences, and traditions—is easily lost with so much turnover. As Alice and I train our successors, Chloë Moore, Patrick Coy-Bjork, and Zoe Scheuerman, I realize how much I learned from Malcolm Cooke, our predecessor, and how much he must’ve learned from Laura Berglund and Sophie Hilker, his predecessors, and on and on all the way back to Jens Tamang and Meghan Wilson, who wrote the first issue on the Words website. Maybe this is what led me into The Words archives in the first place, to learn about what we had kept (Bagel Mondays) and what we had left behind (the original title, The Waverly).
These archives have been especially important since the pandemic started in 2020. The Ramblings, more than anything else in the department, was a product of the isolation we felt during our year of online classes. A collaborative project between the student workers, this podcast showcased English majors in the class of 2021. For each episode, one of the hosts interviewed two seniors, and a producer wrote a short introduction for the episode before it was released on Spotify. This is one project that I’d like to leave in the pandemic archive—something to document how English Majors handled a year of online classes, and how they chose to connect with each other.
I’m acutely aware that my own writing will end up in these archives, that some future editor might come across these Parting Words and think, “So that’s what The Words looked like in 2022” or “They made a podcast?” My hope is that they’ll look back at all the amazing articles that my peers have written since I joined the newsletter team in September of 2020—Alice’s April fools piece, Dalton’s article about remote learning, Malcolm’s interview with Professor English about Afrofuturism, to name just a few. This is our real impact on the department—our ability to share stories from our friends, professors, and colleagues.
And that brings me back to the beginning of my letter—to thanking all of the wonderful people who’ve made the English Department home for the last four years. It’s no surprise that Jan Beebe is the first on this long list—she is the department’s glue and the person who keeps us coming back to the office everyday. My co-editors, Dalton and Alice, have made this year such an incredible end to my college career. To Chloë, Patrick, and Zoe, I have so much confidence in your leadership, and I can’t wait to see what you do with The Words next year. To all of the other student workers and writers—you make work so exciting, and I’ll miss seeing you in the office every week. Finally, to all of the professors in the department, you’ve challenged me the last four years, and I can’t thank you enough for all of the encouragement that you’ve given me and my peers. Macalester wouldn’t be the same without you.
Much love,
Kira Schukar