In this week’s episode of Editor’s Note, Multimedia Editor junior Jaden Satenstein talks to news reporter freshman Clara Richards and Senior News Editor junior Ted Moskal about what we know so far about the spring semester.

This fall marks the second year Washington University has offered its pilot course, Identity Literacy: An Introduction to Cultural Competence in a Diverse World. The University is now aiming to make the course mandatory for all incoming freshman as soon as Fall 2018.

Teaming up with senators Morgan Hartman and Elizabeth Smith, both sophomores, Stella Schindler drafted an SU Senate resolution to restore the course shopping period to its former length of two full weeks and two days—last offered for the fall 2014 semester.

A new course evaluations program is coming to the College of Arts & Sciences, the School of Engineering & Applied Science and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts starting this fall.

When sophomore and cadet Connor Eulberg approached Dean Jen Smith last fall to ask why the College of Arts & Sciences didn’t offer credit for ROTC courses, he didn’t anticipate it would take 20 months to receive an answer.

Hoping to stimulate thought while helping out charity, Dean Jen Smith is donating a can for each College of Arts & Sciences student who visits office hours during the PB&Joy food drive. The fourth annual food drive, which runs from April 3-15, is a University-wide effort to raise awareness for hunger issues in and around the St. Louis community and to support Operation Food Search. Operation Food Search is a local organization focused on teaching the community about cooking and nutrition with the goal of ending hunger.

A student’s Facebook post published last fall has reopened a decades-old dialogue about whether ROTC students should receive credit for their courses. The conversation comes as the campus’ almost century-old battalion struggles for visibility and recruits as the program looks to move past the specter of controversial wars and discriminatory policies.

Dissatisfied with the variety of courses offered in the environmental studies program, a senior majoring in the subject turned in a five-page paper to the dean of Arts & Sciences explaining what Washington University could do to improve the the program. The author, Kady McFadden, expressed three concerns in the report.