Gator Party is proud to have led Student Government for the last two years. It has been an honor to generate long-lasting impacts for the Gator community through the executive and legislative branches.
Our university and our democracy is under attack. On a broad scale, assaults on our academic freedom by Tallahassee have gone unchecked by the UF Board of Trustees, creating an atmosphere of fear and censorship.
Earning the title of a top-five public university last year, UF has become a space for some of the nation’s most gifted individuals — something that often prompts students to go the extra mile when doubting their own skills. Questions of academic ability often become questions of belonging, with a single less-than-superior grade housing the potential to make students worry about whether they deserve to have a spot here.
The first year of my Ph.D. program in psychology had taken a toll on my finances. I had moved from a job that paid me just enough to get by, determined to make UF’s much lower stipend work. Unfortunately, determination wasn’t enough to make that stipend stretch to cover the cost of living.
It’s a student-run newsroom that cycles through a new staff every semester. It’s a breeding ground for developing new skills — a place to mess up before you mess up as a full-time journalist.
Despite their unpopularity, communal residential halls offer benefits that complete the freshman experience here at UF.
A shout-out of gratitude and admiration to all the staff and students who this past week welcomed our new students into residence and dining halls with cheerfulness and effectiveness, even in the heat and rain of August in Gainesville.
We’ve provided hard-hitting news the community depends on before, and it’s a challenge we’re ready to take on once again.
The newsroom’s soda-spotted carpets, crumb-ridden couch and nerd-infested nooks somehow kept my eyes bright as the rest of the city dimmed.
Pressure strips you down until there’s nothing left but who you are, deepest inside, and shoves a mirror in your eyes. Somewhere in all the split-second decisions and time on the clock, that mirror made its way to me.
We’ve been thinking a lot about independence lately. The Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade came one week before the Fourth of July, but the choice also came more than 50 years after The Florida Alligator became The Independent Florida Alligator.
Recommendations from State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo directly contradict, and fail to cite, the thoroughly researched and referenced consensus standards of care for transgender and gender-nonconforming children and adolescents.
Over my time at The Alligator, I’ve learned to cherish every moment. However, to me, it isn’t only about appreciating time. It is learning to accept, revere and grow from the hardest.
The Alligator newsroom is lined with its history. The best issues, framed, hang over editors’ desks. The sagging couch where I nestled for the past 16 print nights seems pulled out of an estate sale, or an abandoned frat house. Closets contain stacks of our recent issues and proud collections of novels written by Alligator alum.
I’ve been obsessed with words for as long as I can remember. The way they can make you feel, what art you can create or how they shape you. And I love words, for I grew up having trouble arranging them in my speech the way I could on paper. So I gobbled them when I could, whether that was reading or writing elementary books before I understood what world I lived in.
I had joined The Alligator Summer 2020 as a transfer student, about four months after the onset of the pandemic. As a digital news assistant, I reported remotely from my Miami home, and my interactions consisted strictly of text and video calls over Zoom. It wasn’t until I became a features and investigations editor in January that I began to feel the sense of community that a true newsroom fosters. I began to see The Alligator as a second home.
We got here because while some of our leaders played partisan politics, others got to work — and together, we all did our part. We developed the best vaccines in the world in record time and distributed over 250 million of them to Americans. We passed legislation that kept small businesses open and put money in people's pockets to ride out the crisis. Local leaders made the tough calls to keep people safe despite intense political interference from Tallahassee.
SG paid Roddy Ricch to perform at the O'Connell Center Feb. 8. In 2021, UF Student Government transferred $1.55 million from its reserves to improve the student experience “as in-person activities return[ed].” Of that money, $750,000 went to SGP. I don’t have an issue with Roddy Ricch as a performer. In fact, I was at the show. But as someone who has worked in live event production for years, I can tell you that’s an obscene amount of money for one act — especially given the turnout of the event. According to The Alligator, of the 6,500 seats available, only about 3,000 were filled.
After a season of mediocrity, Florida fans have every right to storm the court and celebrate with the team.
This project is dedicated to the people of living history who shared their stories. Please accept your roses while you’re still here.
Solutions by The State News
