Editor’s Note

The Stand is Back!

One year ago, a small group of journalism graduate students came together to form a publication featuring their work, as well as contributions from the broader University of Colorado community. They called it The Boulder Stand, a name deriving from the newsstand, a stand of trees, and Stephen King’s famous post-apocalyptic novel, The Stand, in which survivors with visions of peace and Utopia gather to start anew — in Boulder, Colorado.

Lead editor Leia Larsen interacting with one of her favorite environmental media. (Photo/Rayna McGinnis) (via www.raynamcginnis.com)

In its first year, the founding team at The Boulder Stand successfully created its vision:  a student-run, independent digital magazine focusing on science, the environment and the Boulder area.  After a three-month summer hiatus, The Boulder Stand is back, now with a new team and an expanded vision.

Building upon the multiple meanings of our publication’s name, we submit a few more.  Like the clusters of aspen visible in Colorado’s famed Rocky Mountains, just now turning vivid yellow, we hope to stand among our community. We hope to highlight the individuals and ideas in our area, linked by a shared system of roots that nourish, unify and give strength to explore and expand.

This year, we focus even more on taking a stand with our community and becoming an outlet for its many voices on issues of importance to all of us.

While ambitious, our task this year is much easier than the last.  After just a few months, the founding team developed a digital publication where students and local talent could feature their work. Last year’s editors and writers created a solid vision and nine months of quality content. And all this came from virtually nothing, except a few loose ideas.

This fall, we hope to strengthen that foundation and build on it. We have a new team with diverse backgrounds. Our editors have worked near and afar, including stints at Boulder environmental advocacy groups, Colorado investigative news outlets, radio stations in Minneapolis, environmental publications in India, and humanitarian organizations in Madagascar. We have new features coming, including Q&A profiles with notable members of the Boulder environmental and scientific community. We’ve added a blog – the Rhizome – that will follow local people interacting with their environment. We will also continue our weekly, community-sourced photo roundups, which we’ve renamed Photosynthesis. More changes are in the works. Tell your friends, tell your family. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Share The Stand with your neighbors, classmates and colleagues. We welcome and embrace your feedback.

And because we hope to keep rolling with the initial vision for The Stand – to be a platform to feature quality student work and content – submissions are always encouraged. We believe The Stand is not just a student experiment, or a product of the University of Colorado, but a publication by, about and for our community. We hope you’ll agree.