There’s a chilliness and a busyness in the air, for those starting a new school year and for those continuing along over the hop of mid-September without any grand changes. But especially for those starting off on - or resuming - a path in school this year, some of the stories in this issue are especially timely.

Our cover story this week focuses on mental wellness, but there’s a larger thread that runs through many of the pieces in this paper. Health and wellness - mental or otherwise - are often thought of as individual issues.

We’re all sharing space in this world, though, and we all affect each other. But in spaces like this one on campus, where we are crammed together for better or for worse, the effects
we may have on each other can sometimes
be amplified.

Taking care of those around us can be as simple as creating a moment to check in, to ask a question, to actively listen to the answer. It can mean asking for help or offering resources (see the cover story for more of these).

It can also mean reaching out across (real or perceived) differences and stepping out of our comfort zones to learn more about the people we’re sharing space with.

Taking care can be an interpersonal action, and it can also be a solitary practice, done quietly and without fanfare.

We fill this paper with stories to create a space for new conversations and new thought processes to slowly bloom. If these ways of seeing are not new to us, maybe they’re new to you. And what’s old news to you may be new to us, but the distance between new and old is where learning can happen. We hope that somewhere in these pages, that fresh learning space might open up for you.

- Anastasia Chipelski

Published in Volume 73, Number 2 of The Uniter (September 13, 2018)