As The Tower entered the 24-25 school year, they also entered a new chapter with their brand new advisor, Shannon Singer (formerly Shannon Sugamele). When their old advisor, Kaitlin Edgerton, decided to take the next step in her advising career, Singer stepped up to help the publication thrive under new guidance.
Singer said that despite some learning curves and mistakes along the way, she wouldn’t change a thing about the past year in Tower. Through these experiences, she has grown to appreciate the way Tower runs as a class.
“I’m proud of the students for adapting to me, but I’m also very proud of how I’ve adapted to the class,” Singer said. “This class is different than any other class in the building in terms of how it runs. The content that we are producing is so different, and I’m really proud of myself for being able to adapt to this type of course.”
After her year of learning the ways of the publication, Singer said she hopes to make some small changes as The Tower enters its next school year. Some of those changes include: improving the social media presence, making content even better, and eventually increasing the content that The Tower produces.
“One thing I really want to do is cultivate a staff of people who love this work,” Singer said. “I want people who care about this work, people who want to come every single day and work together to create the best content possible. For the most part, we already have a staff that does that, but I feel like that can be improved.”
Despite her excitement to make The Tower a little bit of her own, Singer said that she really appreciates that she was able to help lead an award-winning newspaper, such as The Tower. She explained that she has been really proud of the content produced over the past year and of the students for all their hard work.
“This year has been the most rewarding of my teaching career by far,” Singer said. “Taking on Honors Journalism for the first time and then also advising a prestigious school newspaper, it has been such an incredible learning experience. The connections I’ve made with students have been amazing and I’m really looking forward to continuing in this role as advisor for many years to come.”
