When I tell people that my summer plans consist of me spending two months in Wisconsin, I’m usually met with looks of confusion. The resounding question seems, simply, to be “Why would you choose to be in Wisconsin?” This leads into my spiel about Madeline Island, one of the 22 Apostle Islands on Lake Superior. 

It’s 8:28 a.m. on course registration day. You’ve got your Student System page open, fingers ready, and the WiFi barely hanging on. It’s frustrating. We’ve all been there. But what if, instead of asking what’s wrong with Skidmore, we started asking what more could we be doing as students?

On April 24th, I had the pleasure of speaking with Skidmore alum Michael E. Mone Jr., who received a bachelor’s degree in Government from Skidmore in 1990 before receiving his Juris Doctor from Boston College. I discussed the similarities between Guantanamo Bay and CECOT prisons, as well as the rhetoric of the administrations that use them, with Mr. Mone.

In Marvin Gaye’s 1971 song Mercy, Mercy, Me (The Ecology), Gaye sings, “What about this overcrowded land, how much more abuse from man can she stand?” Gaye was tapping into a flourishing environmental movement of the ‘70s. This is where the “Yes In My Backyard” (YIMBY) has come in, a pro-housing movement that encourages new housing, urban development, and opposes density limits.

On March 26, 2025, Skidmore College's World Languages and Literatures Department announced during a Zoom meeting its decision to eliminate the Self-Instructed Language Program (SILP) from the course catalog. SILP allowed students to study a language independently while meeting with an instructor for two hours per week.

After an exciting election season, The Skidmore News was excited to sit down with the college’s next SGA President, Samantha Majiedt, to ask how she felt about her victory and her plans for the upcoming semester.