About 54 years ago at Kent State University, four days after President Richard Nixon announced an expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia, Ohio Army National Guardsmen fired their weapons into a crowd of student antiwar demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine. The shooting galvanized antiwar activism on college campuses nationwide, including here, in upstate New York, at Binghamton University.

For those who don’t know, Pipe Dream was once “The Colonial News” until a group of editors, immediately following the 1970 Kent State shooting, renounced the name as many felt it glorified American imperialism. For the rest of that semester, “Colonial” was crossed out on the front page in solidarity with the national student strike, which spread to over 850 campuses.

The May 5, 1970 issue of The Colonial News saw a printed statement drafted and approved by college and university newspaper editors that said, “President Nixon’s unwarranted and illegitimate decision to send American combat forces into Cambodia and to resume the bombing of North Vietnam demands militant, immediate, and continued opposition from all Americans.”

In an advertisement in one of the first issues of the renamed paper that fall, Pipe Dream’s first editor-in-chief, Peter Salgo, wrote that The Colonial News was “too easily identified with the inhuman policy of this country towards other peoples of the world.”

As Pipe Dream’s leadership this year, we will not forget the rich tradition of antiwar activism that gave our newspaper its unique name. As our University community returns for its first semester since the largest mass demonstrations on college campuses in a generation, Pipe Dream will always be a platform for all student voices to express their hopes, fears and frustrations.

A free and vibrant press has a solemn responsibility in the United States — to inform the public and hold the powerful to account. As a University publication, we are a forum for students, faculty, staff and community members to express their views and engage firmly but respectfully with each other. To this end, and for transparency, we plan to publish the guidelines and standards we stand by for clarity and uniformity. We are committed to serving the campus community with objective and robust news reporting.

We are equally committed to holding local politicians and our University’s administrators accountable and amplifying calls for justice locally and around the world.

Brandon Ng, Editor-in-Chief

Lia Richter, Managing Editor

A “letter from the editors” is a piece where the editor-in-chief and/or managing editor directly address Pipe Dream’s readership with pertinent information, updates or their general thoughts.