By Lacey Jarrell
Portrait by Will Kanellos

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I always had a hunch I was lucky. But I never realized how lucky I was until I had the opportunity to represent Ethos at the Associated Collegiate Press convention in Chicago this past November. Mingling with industry professionals and nearly 2,000 journalism students from across the US, I graciously added more than a few sharpened arrows to my journalist’s quiver. But most importantly, during the convention I came to understand that while the University of Oregon was represented by three first-rate publications, many colleges and universities are struggling to regularly produce just one campus publication.
From this I began pondering what has allowed Ethos to become a successful, award-winning publication since its inception as KD Magazine in 2005.
What I found is that the proof, as they say, is in the pudding.
Although Ethos staff produces 56 stories annually for our quarterly print magazine, the secret to our publication’s longevity goes much deeper than just putting words on paper. It’s the drive of the editorial staff meeting deadlines like clockwork, and the copy editors dotting every i and crossing every t with precision. It’s the designers who splash color across endless pages until finding just the right accent to make the stories and photos pop, and it’s the excellence in campus and community coverage Ethos’s web team publishes weekly. All of this is only in addition to the collaboration that Ethos’s development team inspires by partnering with local businesses and community organizations.
On the surface, Ethos’s success reveals itself in the glossy spreads of our 48-page print magazine. But it is my hope that the secret ingredient of what makes Ethos work—each student’s dedication to quality and determination to rise to the challenges of producing a professional publication—is also evident in each issue. I believe it’s this unique sense of pride and ownership that has inspired others to pass on the proverbial Ethos torch over the last eight years.
From this perspective, it’s easy to imagine another editor in chief looking back on Ethos eight years from now wondering how they, too, got so lucky.