The Arts & Entertainment section of Technician has taken the longest of any other section to find its footing of what it wants to be called. We tested out “Features” but decided it wasn’t encompassing enough, and now we’ve done the same with “Arts & Entertainment.”

Moving forward, the Arts & Entertainment section will be known as Arts & Culture. Our content and coverage will remain the same; however, we feel “Arts & Culture” will allow us to be more detailed and inclusive of our past, current and future coverage. 

For instance, the coverage from the past semester touched on the 2020 Friday Medal, NC State’s Halloween history and the history of the Yarbrough smokestack. These are not necessarily stories about arts or entertainment, but definitely detail the culture of NC State.

Furthermore, coverage of the campus centers — the African American Cultural Center, the GLBT Center, Multicultural Student Affairs and the Women’s Center — have historically been placed in the hands of our section, even when these stories had nothing to do with arts or entertainment. Frankly, for some of the pieces, it might even be offensive to refer to them as “entertainment,” namely our coverage of religious and cultural holidays, such as Kwanzaa, Sukkot or our coverage of mental health awareness programs.

Labeling these pieces as “entertainment” lightens their meaning and does not present them as what they are: integral, important and valuable parts of a group’s or campus culture. 

Moving forward, we hope that we can continue to create stories that accurately represent the culture and the groups on our campus with the integrity and respect that they deserve. We look forward to being your Arts & Culture editors.

Austin and Abbie