Staff members from different sections of The Miami Student wrote columns about what the publication means to them.
Technically speaking, I’ve been a part of The Miami Student longer than I’ve been a student at Miami University.
I decided to go to Miami before I ever toured, attended an orientation or visited campus in any capacity. My first time seeing Oxford was during move-in weekend of my first year.
I started as a finance major (a decision I can no longer comprehend now). I convinced myself I needed to join some club or organization to keep me out of my dorm room and meet new people. I liked writing and watching football, and on my drive down to campus for the first time — three days before the fall semester began — I emailed Jack Schmelzinger, the sports editor at The Student, asking what it would take to join and how soon I could get started.
Jack responded later that same day, welcoming me to the section and asking how I’d feel about covering the football team’s season opener against Kentucky at the end of the week.
I wrote six stories in my first year and added journalism as a double major. I finished my sophomore year with 41 bylines and moved up to sports editor. Even then, I considered journalism a backup plan in case I hated finance. I enjoyed writing, but I couldn’t make a career out of it, could I?
As a senior now with 236 bylines to my name (as of publishing this), my answer to that question is a resounding “yes.”
Kethan Babu sits in the press box at Northern Illinois University for Miami’s football game on Oct. 4, 2025.
I could talk about the career opportunities I’ve had with the newspaper. I could write essays about how The Student has allowed me to walk on the turf at Ford Field, meet Snoop Dogg and AJ Brown, tour the Fox News studio in Washington, D.C., and more.
None of that matters nearly as much as the feeling of family I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying the past couple of years.
I was a shy, awkward guy from Detroit who knew nothing about journalistic ethics or AP style when I first started. I could barely talk through our weekly budget spreadsheets without throwing up. I didn’t speak up often out of fear that I wouldn’t be accepted. But none of that mattered.
Not only did people welcome me with open arms, but the people in the paper have easily become some of my best friends. Walking into the newsroom never felt like going to work. If anything, it feels like heading home after a long day at work. I can put my feet up, listen to music, play darts or cards or just talk about our days.
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The people I’ve met in The Student have been absolutely pivotal to my college experience. Whether that’s playing tennis with Taylor Stumbaugh, driving all over the Midwest with Sarah Frosch, spending an entire day covering football with Elisa Rosenthal, quoting TikToks with Jeff Middleton, joking with Olivia Patel, being tech support for Anna Reier, getting a “67” Wendy’s Frosty with Taylor Powers, throwing an egg at the ceiling with Stella Powers and countless other memories with the staff.
At the risk of sounding like a cliché, the people have been significantly more impactful on my time with this organization than anything else. What started as a side hobby and a time filler has introduced me to people that I will hold dear to my heart for the rest of my life.
I’d do anything to relive the past three years and experience those memories again. I’m forever grateful to have a place in the 200-year history of the greatest college newspaper in the country.
Kethan Babu is a senior journalism with a minor in finance. He is the sports editor of The Student.
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By Burton Glass | YesterdayMy memories of The Miami Student start with wax, not words. In the mid-1980s, when Bruno’s Pizza slices were 50 cents and dinosaurs roamed Oxford freely, student journalists burned fingers twice a week applying hot wax to two-inch wide strips of news copy spat out of a phototypesetting machine and trimmed with X-Acto knives. We literally bled for, and often on, our work.
Long-lasting impact of the unsigned editorial
By Bob White | YesterdayDuring my stint as The Miami Student’s editorial page editor in 1974, I put considerable energy into opposing the university’s proposal to build an ice skating rink. I was paying my own way, and considered a $20 student fee for an ice rink to be an extravagant waste.