Editorial: Hope, in review

In December, The Brown and White wrapped up a semester filled to the brim with events that shocked, horrified or brought us together.

However, the times have, unfortunately, gotten more unprecedented.

In the editorial pages this semester, we’ve chronicled the mounting power of billionaires in government, the erosion of the rights of women, the government encroaching on freedom of speech, a broken hiring system and the many ways life at Lehigh is changing — whether that’s a controversial new look to the Clayton University Center or the ever-rising cost of attendance.

As Bob Dylan said, “For the times they are a-changin’.”

This semester, The Brown and White editorial board looked a bit different, as it was unintentionally made up of only women. The seven of us gathered each Monday to discuss topics at the top of our minds that, from our perspective, seemed relevant to the Lehigh community as a whole.

Sometimes these conversations would leave us deflated and exhausted by the state of the world, which seemed to worsen with each week that passed. But in between those moments, we left our small round table in Coppee Hall with a sense of hope and connection.

These simple, joyful conversations were captured by editorials about trinkets, the music Lehigh students are listening to, the beauty of spring on campus, books, being a good friend in the digital age and partying.

These topics may seem less impactful than the ones discussing the heavy issues our community and the world are facing. But the truth is they are just as important.

Anxiety, depression and loneliness are on the rise, with 18% of adults experiencing anxiety, 21% experiencing depression and 24% of 18-29 year olds feeling lonely.

These troubling statistics are influenced by Americans’ worries about political and economic issues, as well as societal changes that surround the growth of social media and the expansion of the 24-hour news cycle.

It’s inevitable that Lehigh students feel this same pressure.

The things that allow our group — the seven women who sit down to talk in the newsroom each week — to forget about our existential anxieties are the things that remind us life can still have moments of whimsy and magic if we look for it in each other.

While The Brown and White’s editorials have explored subjects that spark joy, hobbies that entrance and spaces for community building, the fear and despair many feel about pressing political topics and the dangers facing the world remained in the undertones.

Even the articles that spoke to a sense of hope carried the weight of our tense political times.

We found the rise in trinket purchases to be a recession indicator, with people swapping luxury purchases for dopamine-boosting, affordable ones.

Books were deemed a possible solution and the “death of the English major” at the hands of technology, but for our phone addictions came as a sign of our society lacking empathy.

Partying can be a way to reconnect with those around us, staving off an ever-growing loneliness crisis.

But the loom of these heavy, disheartening topics does not take away from the joy. It just contextualizes it.

Having a collection of felt animals sitting on your desk or dancing all night with your friends is not going to save the world, but building a support system, a community around these things that bring you joy, makes any form of activism more sustainable.

We’ve come to realize that in times of hardship, people tend to get creative with the big or small ways they feel happy.

As we’re sure many remember, during the COVID pandemic, people were finding joy by making whipped coffee and welcoming home essential workers.

In 2025, people are organizing cake picnics in San Francisco, and thousands of people are joining cookbook clubs in New York City.

To be change-makers, there has to be moments of quiet to escape the barrage of noise the media feeds us, which is always giving us new reasons to be scared and angry. Through it all, it’s worth trying to strike a balance to preserve some sort of hope for ourselves and others.

The job of The Brown and White’s editorial board is to take notice of the trends, issues and cultural shifts impacting the Lehigh community. Beyond that, it’s our job to comment on them in a way that is productive for not only the seven of us but the community as a whole.

It’s a space where we strive to serve as a representative voice in the best way we can and advocate for what we believe in.

As the curtain closes on spring 2025 — and for many us, our entire college experience — we hope the generations of students that follow are able to understand that the moments of levity, of connection and of celebration between headlines full of hard truths are not distractions.

Instead, they’re mechanisms to uphold individual agency in a time where we often feel powerless.