After speaking with senior editor-in-chief Ciara Worthey last week, The Fanscotian sat down with the EICs for next year’s yearbook, juniors Rebecca Strug and Julia Yick. They discuss their experiences making the book in a pandemic, takeaways from this year and how they plan to lead a new staff. Next year’s yearbook will be in good hands. 

This interview has been edited for clarity. 

Matt Levine: You’re both coming in as EICs pretty much after a year of making a yearbook but making one during a pandemic. What was that experience like and do you think it has prepared you better to run the yearbook?

Rebecca Strug: Yeah, I think it has. It was pretty difficult during the pandemic. We have a lot of new ideas and how we can improve the system, and we know what it feels like to work in hybrid models. I think it’s easier to go back to a slightly hybrid with more in-person. 

ML: What new things did you guys learn specifically this year that really were a result of the pandemic? 

Julia Yick: Well, this year we did the book completely virtual, which is completely different. In general, I think it [the pandemic] helped us be more organized and it’s easier to send stuff between people. It’s more of a collective effort, it’s not individual work. 

RS: We now know the importance of communicating with the school, making sure the student body knows what we’re doing so they want to respond to our emails.

ML: What are your goals for next year? 

RS: Make a great book. (Laughter) Make sure that the staff feels welcome and they’re part of the group because that was something that we sort of struggled with because of the times, but everyone was really nice. 

ML: As sophomores, you were also part of making the book? 

JY: Yeah, well last year I was a part of staff so I made spreads for about half the year. I was also the assistant writing editor because there were a lot of groups and we only had one editor and it’s a lot of work. 

ML: What are some of the things that you guys took away from that experience? As a leader, you lead differently, how do you both plan to make the staff feel welcome and make the underclassmen feel like they’re part of the final product? 

RS: A lot of bonding activities, we have the section editor Julia Jackson who is in charge of building a connection between the staff and the editors. For class in general, we’re going to be talking with everyone face to face. 

JY: We’re also going to be together this year so it’s going to make the editors a lot more approachable because last year you would just go into a breakout room with your partner and it was just you and them. I think it’s going to come down to physically being together a lot more. Also, I experienced this last year but just being able to better relate to the staff this year. We were a part of staff last year and this year there were a lot of editors who have been editors for a while. 

ML: What part of the process is the yearbook currently in? What are the main things you are hoping to get accomplished the rest of this year? 

RS: We just made the page ladder so we organized which pages are going to go where. The creative people, Ava Berry and Abbie Sapira, are making the layout for the book. Basically, when we come back in September, we’re all good to go with the spreads. The writing staff right now is coming up with ways for how they are going to teach next year’s staff members. 

JY: This is all about preparing them to come in here able to get to work. We have our theme developed and the whole book is planned out about what’s going to go where and then we’ll be able to prep the staff to hit the ground running.

ML: What was it like when you guys submitted the whole book? Were you guys in person?  

RS & JY: It was great. 

RS: I think it was Ciara’s first day back and she and Abby sat next to each other and hit the  button. 

JY: You submit the whole book online so you get to look back and see all the pages you submitted and it’s really cool to look back on. 

ML: Is there a certain section you hope people look at this year? 

JY: I think the Student Life section has a lot more to it this year. There is 

some stuff that we just couldn’t cover, that didn’t happen, so the student life section is diverse and there’s a lot going on with that. The staff worked really hard finding people and pictures.

RS: I had to make a “Go Green” environmental spread, which is cool but very difficult to make with all the students’ environmental stuff.

ML: Can you reveal the theme for next year’s book to The Fanscotian?

JY: Absolutely not. 

(Laughter)