Weekly Briefing: Welcome back ... sort of

It’s the first Monday back after our extended spring break and subsequent transition of classes to remote learning. How are you handling it, Pacers?

Whether you’re struggling to modify your learning style in order to accommodate this change or you are finding the alterations easy to maneuver, your student newspaper will be here to provide information and entertainment throughout the rest of the semester.

In this week’s issue we managed to prepare 13 articles, holding our production meeting via Zoom rather than in our office.

In News this week, Editor Noelle Kriegel outlined some of the potential links between smoking and COVID-19. I covered the growing coronavirus cases from both a national level and for South Carolina in particular.

There are two galleries available this week from Editor David Frantz. He attended the last USC Aiken baseball game and put together photos of the win against Georgia College. The other gallery includes images of the spring blooms on the USCA’s campus, which the community is unfortunately missing out on due to quarantine practices.

Editor Frantz also wrote an article for Arts and Entertainment about the various Wonder Woman actresses and who he prefers.

The opinions section is full this week, with seven articles falling under that category. Editor Erica Bennett wrote about how the coronavirus pandemic is impacting her as a music student. Editor Kriegel wrote about the effects of COVID-19 on those of a lower socioeconomic status.

Editor Frantz wrote about his unusual spring break experience, which involved having a new left thumb joint created from part of a tendon in his arm. He also wrote an opinionated feature on Chancellor Sandra Jordan, whom he referred to as a gift to USCA.

Reporter Chi Nguyen discussed the amount of germs found on airplanes in her opinion column, while I wrote about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected me as a graduating senior.

Finally, in our continuing alumni corner series, previous editor-in-chief of Pacer Times, Colleen Hart, wrote about what she learned from moving home again.

Thanks for continuing to read Pacer Times. We appreciate you and will continue to provide regular updates on the coronavirus. Please remember that all COVID-19 articles were written before 9 p.m. on Sunday night, so any statistics will not reflect information that came out this morning.

Have a great week, Pacers!