In these times of uncertainty fueled by the burning questions ever present in the minds of Oberlin students – why is the DeCafe shut on a Friday when I need my coffee? How many times do I need to poop at the Environmental Science Center to earn twenty-five free beers at the ’Sco? – we all need something to grasp onto and give us hope for the future. The outside world and the economics of reality are creeping daily closer to the average Oberlin student like the ominous thick pitch-black clouds that herald a tornado, and there’s no umbrella in sight. With this in mind, the Review offers you a small bright spot and piece of blue sky in the form of highlights from: The Oberlin Review Strategic Planning Document.

The Oberlin Review enters this process of strategic planning with great strengths. The Review uniquely combines a premier opportunity for a school with no journalism department with many renowned majors that emphasize writing. Our proud history manifests ambitious dedication to breaking news and artistically excellent wall-quotes (usually produced around 3 a.m.).

Those involved in this strategic planning process have worked to identify ways that the Review can build on its strengths to continue being, if not universally considered on par with the New York Times, at least more tasteful than the Grape.

The Review has long been guided by a set of principles that give specific meaning and direction to an excellent newspaper. These include a commitment to tracing the biology of the albino squirrel population, a conviction that 2 a..m. wrestling matches between the sports editors are central to human existence and dependence upon each staff member as part of a living, vital, web of referrals to others for answers to problems that nobody can actually solve.

The Oberlin Review’s mission is to:—Graduate staff members who, due to many late nights filled with bad leads and even worse headlines, may be considered legally insane—Provide the highest level of stress for every senior editor on staff to prepare them for “real world” journalism—Open the world of chain-smoking copy-editors and emergency runs to 4th meal and the DeCafe to all Oberlin students—Help students clarify and integrate their grammatical skills and ability to identify italicized periods, social commitments and vocational interests (presumably journalism related, but hey — we’ll take anything, even TIMARA).

The Oberlin Review’s current strategic planning has intentionally integrated week-by-week planning with financial planning in the conviction that programmatic excellence cannot sustain itself without robust financial health. We have examined the Review’s operating and capital expenditures and advertising revenue. We have found that if we shut the paper down completely for approximately five years, we might be able to recover from our encroaching, suffocating debt. However, due to our moral and ethical journalistic high-ground, we feel that this would be a great detriment to society, as the Grape would then be Oberlin’s newspaper of record. Actually . . . maybe we could do that . . .