"When I think about what The Student means to me, I think about having somewhere to go where I have a purpose. The Student filled a hole that I didn’t even know existed."
During his time in TMS Sam founded the GreenHawks section, was editor of the Opinion section, and was co-managing editor of The Miami Student Magazine, winning regional and state awards for his work. He’s now a freelance environmental journalist.
It’s been 50-plus years since the last story I wrote for The Miami Student (TMS) appeared in the Nov. 4, 1975, issue.
"My first semester was extremely challenging. But it was my friends at The Student who made me feel less alone."
"While anniversaries like The Miami Student’s bicentennial mark years of impressive tradition, they also act as a benchmark of the evolution of the news industry today. With an estimated 136 local newspapers closing in the last year, anniversaries of long-standing newspapers serve as a significant reminder of the importance of print journalism."
In the warm fall of 2020, I stumbled my way to Miami University, green behind the ears, eager to get away from home and terrified of where I was going.
During my final night as editor-in-chief of The Miami Student, we achieved a rarity.
A media outlet making a mistake probably won’t surprise anyone who’s ever worked on a student publication or followed the news closely. Media is created by people, and people get things wrong.
Even though I was just a sportswriter at the time as a junior on campus, The Student editor-in-chief Sue MacDonald ran my column on the front of the entire paper. It was well-read, especially by Crum, his assistant coaches and players. They fumed with every syllable.
As a 1973 first-year student, I decided to major in education just like my grandmother (who attended Oxford College for Women in the early 1900s), my two teacher sisters and my mother, who was administrator at a local school.
My four years with The Student were filled with indelible experiences, incredible friends and colleagues, including a young Ohio woman who later became my wife, and the inimitable opportunities to contribute to the quality of and commitment to journalism at Miami. It was inspiring and life-altering.
"I can’t even process the numerous times I’ve heard people proudly announce that they haven’t read a book since elementary school. When did it become cool to admit that you’re willingly avoiding resources that can enhance your critical thinking?"
"According to a post by Priori Data, in 2025, the average person spent around five to six hours a day on their phones. This begs the question: Are we too obsessed with the relationship with our screens?"
"That truth had never been more clear to me than in the midst of a crowd of hundreds on the cold Friday morning of Jan. 30 at the campus-wide ICE Out Walkout, organized by the Ohio Student Association and Young Democratic Socialists of America at Miami University."
"Long before there was Rosa Parks, there was Ida B. Wells."
"However, many study abroad programs can be realistic when you know where to look and what funding exists for you. The problem isn’t that students don’t want to go; many of us just haven’t heard we can."
"In many Latin-American countries, Valentine’s Day is celebrated as 'Dia de Amor y Amistad,' directly translating to 'Day of Love and Friendship.' I wish this spirit were more common in the United States — less focused on relationships and more on love in general — because that’s a sentiment everyone can agree on."
"Now that we live in a society where women can work, own property and are legally owed bodily autonomy (sort of…), dating has taken precedence over the outdated tradition of courtship. Romantic relationships aren’t always formed with the intention of marriage, but simply companionship."
These words — biased, boring and bad — describe U.S. teenagers’ “perceptions of news media and journalism,” according to the latest News Literacy Project.
"Despite the overwhelming opinion that Cook Field should be preserved, Miami is still planning on building over top of this green space."