Nadia McDonald | Staff Designer

As the editors of Forum, Student Life’s opinion section, we thought it would be beneficial for us to explain who we are, what we do, and how our processes work. Broadly speaking, Forum strives to publish a wide range of opinions that reflect the intellectual diversity of the WashU community. From takes on campus news to pop culture to local elections, we hope to be a space where opinions in the WashU community are argued in clear and ethically spirited ways. Articles published in the Forum section in no way represent official stances of Student Life.

The Forum section features opinion articles written by the Forum section editors, staff and contributing writers, as well as opinion submissions by members of the WashU community. Our section meetings are at 7 p.m. on Mondays in the Student Life office, which is located on the third floor of the Danforth University Center. Anyone is welcome to attend these meetings to work through article ideas, help others with their arguments, speak with our editors, or just listen to the group discussion. 

If you are on campus and are thinking of submitting an opinion, consider stopping by in person — working out ideas and drafts is always easier when we meet writers face-to-face. To get a general idea of an opinion piece’s structure, read a few recent pieces on our website before you begin drafting. Sometimes we can transform essays from class into op-eds, but be mindful that these often have fundamentally different purposes and structures. We often work through exercises at our meetings that can help if you feel uncertain about how to approach writing a piece. 

Our editorial team does line and structural edits in the form of comments and suggestions for all content to be published in Forum. This includes, but is not limited to, grammatical corrections, wording adjustments, structural flow ideas, and potential counterarguments. Articles may require multiple rounds of edits before publication to ensure that they are in line with Student Life standards in terms of article structure, accessibility, and quality. 

We accept submissions that have clear arguments, pertain to the WashU community, and are written by people connected to the University in some way. Writers should determine whether Student Life is the appropriate platform for their argument. Some of the opinions we publish are popular, and some are not. We believe that disagreements are opportunities for growth and greater mutual understanding. That being said, we do not accept opinion submissions that we judge to cause genuine harm or are premised on unquestionably inflammatory standpoints. We have absolute discretion over what may or may not be published.

The “Understanding our content” section of the Student Life website further explains the opinion submission process. If you have any questions about our processes, please feel free to email us at [email protected] or attend one of our meetings.