December 29, 2008
Well, the semester’s ended—but not really. We’re all still working, trying to keep the site updated with new copy. That’s a huge change for me. Generally, no matter how bad a semester is, I always say to myself, “hey, it’s only 15 weeks.”
Now, the work goes on. Students are getting paid (thank you Ford Foundation and Craig Newmark) to produce and everyone else is working for free—Richard Koci Hernandez who is doggedly trying to keep five other sites running and helping me, Geeta Dayal, who is figuring out the bilingual site, Mimi Chakarova, our newest multimedia addition and Bob Calo, who is helping edit video. Don’t ask me why. It’s compelling. We want to make it work. But will this become an issue later on? Can we make it work and even pay ourselves for working during breaks?
The big challenge is still finding a readership so we have Armand Emamdjomeh, who will be an editor next semester, laying out a print edition that we will publish in Spanish and English (Thank you Manuel and Martin Chávez). We have Hugo Martinez, a former student who now lives in Mexico City, working on the translations for the print and web site. We will soon have my daughter Geraldine and a friend (must keep editorial separate from the business side) out trying to sell advertisements for the print edition. What we hope, is that the print edition will lead readers to the web site.
We’ll see.
Lydia Chávez
Managing Editor