Cadence Chen

I’ve floated in and out of The Scarlet and Black throughout my four years here. I’ve been around since my first semester. Back then, they paid us around eight dollars an hour, and our article turnarounds were from Sunday to Wednesday. When I was in my first semester working as a staff writer, my tutorial professor caught me clacking away on article assignments with my bruised iPhone 6 plus as my class was birding at Conard Environmental Research Area. It might have been about new faculty or droughts. I forget. I hardly made the deadline most weeks. The deadlines were stressful, so I took a step back from the paper during my second year. 

When I came back to The S&B in my third year, the paper was giving us staff writers a little more sway in our assignments. I appreciated the chance to write so many Writers@Grinnell articles, which I continued writing in my seventh semester as a fourth year. It was a real, special opportunity to speak to these writers one-on-one and see the W@G director and my tutorial professor Hai-Dang Phan at every event, all ostensibly for work. 

In my fourth year, I set my S&B ambitions on something new — managing editor. You know, people often ask me, what do you do? Well, I manage the website. I just wanted to use this space to clear the air. 

In my first year, I didn’t really talk to people at the paper outside of my editors, but perhaps, what I’m most grateful for out of my time at The S&B is my long-lasting friendship with Taylor Nunley `26, the current editor in chief. In our first year, we were both staff writers, little scrappy word churners doing any assignment we were given and following journalistic ethics the best we could. Now, she runs this thing, and I do what she tells me to do because she is often right and knows what she’s doing. 

Now, for a quick series of thank yous and notes of gratitude for the people who have made this job nourishing and a delight. Alison Moore `24 and Nadia Langley `23 were my first editors-in-chief and set the bar high for leadership. I appreciated my work with editors Lucia Cheng `23, Nina Baker `24, and Lilli Morrish `25 and cherish their vivacities for people and writing. Our current editors-in-chief Sarah Evans `26 and Taylor Nunley `26 balanced this year incredibly. Thank you Lyle Muller for watching over the paper for so long. I love your substack. Your publishing rate astonishes me. 

I know from working with the upcoming editors-in-chief for the 2026-2027 semester Natalie Ng `27 and Zoe Zappas `27 that their leadership will be superb and graceful. I have no reservations about their abilities and ethics. Just another win for people with alliterative names!