The Exchange: An open letter to the students of SSSB

Without a doubt, there is much explaining to do. The Exchange was started about five years ago by Jason Buskin, to act as the student newspaper of the Sy Syms School of Business. As the proportion of Syms students in the University in relation to YC students continues to grow, it was reason enough, even back then, to provide a paper for that school to focus on SSSB events, often eclipsed by YC activities in the Commentator (student election coverage for example), as well as act as a forum for students to write about business related topics. The paper filled a niche.

Three years ago, a successful attempt was made by my predecessor, Michael Insel, at beefing up the paper by pumping out the fluff. Gone were the cover stories on the Sy Syms shabbaton success, and in came articles on leveraged buyouts, management concepts and computer consulting. Replacing that problem were the management difficulties that arose. Soon after I became the Editor-in Chief, half of my staff dropped out, as the upper echelons of the staff were comprised of seniors graduating in mid-year, and my Co-Editor-in Chief left in frustration from the lack of financial support given to us by various administrative and alumni sources, as it affected running the paper.

This lack of support was unconscionable, as the successful image of the paper was great PR for companies coming to recruit at YU, as it reflected the caliber of participating students and raised the image of the school. Yet, nobody felt it a pressing need to fund a school paper representing half of the student body on both campuses. It was quite difficult to repay publishing costs and even more difficult to grow. We had no equipment, so we resorted to using the Commentator office, which hampered our production schedule to say the least. For any of you that remember, this made the front page of the Commentator. In short, it was ugly. I managed to publish on a monthly basis at one point for more than half a year, and it reflected in the reactions we received; it was a high quality paper, people read it, wanted to write, and always asked about when the next issue would be published. That was proof enough of the power that was wielded. Unfortunately, this didn’t last long, as I soon hired people who worked hard, yet had very little idea of how to run a newspaper.

Our publishing schedule suffered, and soon it was time to let new (and still current) Editors-in Chief, David Knoll and Elijah Kaplan take their turn. They were plagued by the same financial issues, as there was only so much help the SSSBSC could provide. In addition, fortunately or unfortunately, they decided to change the paper by removing even the respectable school related articles, and turning the paper into a journal, so that the Exchange could even look more professional. I couldn’t contest this decision, as they were the most and only qualified people for the job. This led them to respond to any complaints about non-publication with the valid alibi of it being a journal and therefore there was no need to publish as often. They were and are, in fact, doing their work of collecting articles for the journal over this year, but the practical point is that in the meantime, there was technically no Exchange, so I was powerless to stop them.

Opportunities for students to write smaller, low-key articles were lost, and soon people forgot about the paper. That was the first problem. The second problem was that I was soon notified that the Commentator was interested in starting up a business section. This would be an embarrassment to the Exchange, and with both of those pressing issues in the air, something had to be done.

I approached Aaron Klein with the idea of making the Exchange part of the Commentator - basically allowing the Commentator to acquire us in a merger. It should be noted that the idea was entirely mine, and not a strong-arm tactic of the Commentator to crush the Exchange in an embarrassing defeat. It was the most practical solution and provides short-term and long term benefits, so it’s not some quick-fix solution done in haste with no regard for consequence. We’d be able to publish the Exchange as the Exchange inside the Commentator, a paper within a paper, instead of it just being “the business section”.

This gives us a permanent publishing schedule with zero interruption, the ability to use resources such as computers, their web site for archives, and saves us financially, as all costs would simply be included under the Commentator’s publishing costs. The money used to publish the Exhange from the SSSBSC budget can now be used towards the journal for the end of the year, ensuring that it goes off without a hitch. David and Elijah will still be Editors-in-Chief of that, and I’ll have the opportunity of supervising the operation in the Commentator in order that it succeeds.

I’ve managed to put the Exchange in the hands of people I trust, and important opinions are by my side. I’ve been given full consent from Yossi Knoll, the President of the SSSB Student Council, and have the blessing of Elijah and David in starting out this venture. And if we ever decide to self-publish down the line, the Commentator will allow us to do that, so there’s no damage done. My thanks goes out to Aaron Klein for being receptive and professional in his actions.

I leave one message for SSSB students: The Exchange is back - so start writing. Yair Oppenheim SSSB ‘00