What Kinds of Stories Does The Weather Vane Cover?

Updated

The Weather Vane is the independent student newspaper of Eastern Mennonite University, published weekly by undergraduate students. Its coverage spans five main areas: campus news and features, campus life and diversity, opinion and editorials, reviews, and sports. If you want to know what student journalists at EMU are reporting on — from institutional decisions to dining hall coffee — those five sections are where you'll find it.

News and Feature Reporting

This is where the paper covers decisions and events that affect the campus community. Reported pieces in the source material include:

  • Institutional partnerships and property: "Thirty One Acres Sold to VMRC in New Partnership," covering the sale of EMU's Park Woods and baseball field
  • Student activism: "Students Protest Minority Injustice at City Hall"
  • Academic programs: "PATH 103: Pathways Curriculum & the 'Value Major'" and "EMU ACE Festival Presents A Year of Student Work"
  • Student-led policy change: "Student Petition Drives Historic Meal Plan Changes"
  • Conferences and events: "2026 Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship Conference"

The pattern here is campus governance, curriculum, and student organizing — stories where an EMU decision or student action has a concrete outcome.

Campus Life, Diversity, and Traditions

A separate strand covers the texture of student life rather than institutional news:

  • "Ethiopian Students Welcome 2019," which frames diversity at EMU as something "seen," "heard in different languages," and "felt through different traditions"
  • "SEEDS Revamps EMU's Campus Chicken Coop"
  • "EMU Hosts Passover Seder"
  • "Did you know April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month?"

These pieces tend to be shorter, event-driven, and focused on cultural and community life on campus.

Opinion and Editorials

The opinion section runs student arguments and editorial positions, often on campus conditions:

  • "EMU's Housing Should Feel Like Home" — a first-person argument about dorm conditions
  • "Editorial: A Season of Change"
  • "Towards a Collective Pedagogy"
  • "For It's the End of History"
  • "The Unknown Demise of 18F"

Note that editorials are unsigned institutional positions of the paper, while the other pieces carry individual bylines.

Reviews

Reviews focus mainly on food, particularly campus and local coffee:

  • "Seasonal Sips Showdown Scrutiny" — a review of the on-campus coffee shop's menu changes
  • "The Best Cafe by a Latte"
  • "FIN 289: A Necessity for ALL"

Sports

Sports coverage includes both EMU teams and broader NCAA developments:

  • NCAA policy: "Trickle Down Effects of Eligibility Update," on the NCAA's changed eligibility guidelines at the Division I level
  • Team results: "Men's Volleyball Defies Expectations And Makes It to the ODAC Championship Finals," "Women's Disc Golf Places Sixth in Nationals"
  • Tournament coverage: "First Two Rounds of March Madness Bring Chaos"

How to Tell Which Section You're In

The paper labels each piece by section in its index — News & Feature, Campus Life, Opinion, Review, and Sports. If you're looking for a specific type of story, that label is the fastest filter. Bylines and dates appear with each item, so you can also judge how current a piece is; the source material shows entries dated from March through September 2026.