As a continuing semester tradition, The Journal presents the Fall semester’s issue of the Beyond. The Beyond is a once-a-semester issue that provides The Journal’s writers with a chance to write about a universal theme, often pertaining to trending topics within our society. It is a larger piece, to be taken in totality, centering around the universal theme.

The theme of this semester’s Beyond issue is “Beyond COVID-19: A New Normal”. While the recent years have taken us all through many twists and turns, due to COVID-19’s presence, The Journal team realized the rising opportunity to thoroughly dissect the different facets of life and how they have changed, for better or worse, in the face of a year-long pandemic. And ultimately, what the new normal, we all are living through, does, will, and could look like.

This semester’s issue of the Beyond is particularly special as our team collaborated with writers of The Lamp, the student newspaper at Lincoln Land Community College (LLCC). With seven articles provided by writers of The Lamp, we are excited to present perspectives of another student-run publication, alongside our own.

Together we have crafted a truly special collaborative issue to fill your intellectual curiosity and your reading enjoyment. We will explore the good, the bad, and even the ugly but we hope that we can inspire you along the way to find your path in our “new normal”. We hope you will join us over the next two weeks as we all take a journey into the “new normal” together.