Slusher: New column will provide insight through direct access

A newspaper has many distinguishing qualities and components, but one of the most important things it possesses is access. By virtue of the fact that we speak to tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of people at once, we can get close to politicians, celebrities, business leaders and all manner of decision-makers who need or want to make a personal contact with large numbers of people at once.

This access certainly can be abused, and human nature being what it is, it always is filtered. No matter how hard we may try, we can never ask every question that every individual wants to hear answered nor present the answers in the tone that suits every individual. From the opposite vantage point, we also cannot present the message that every subject wants delivered precisely as he or she wants it delivered - nor should we; an important part of our role involves questioning and qualifying the things that newsmakers say to provide a broader perspective.

But all that said, at times the best way for you to engage with an issue is to get it directly, realizing of course that you are getting information colored by the bias of the speaker but tempered with a level of insight that only that person can give.

That is the underlying philosophy of the "Guest View" columns that we carry regularly on the editorial page. They are examinations of a topic by a person whose association with it gives them either a depth of factual knowledge, special insights or direct experiences that people not directly involved can at best only imagine from a distance. The guest view perspective does not necessarily make a writer "right" on an issue; quite often, we'll run guest views with diametrically opposite points of view on a given subject. But it does provide a level of engagement that can lead an open-minded reader to a greater depth of insight on a topic.

For some time, we've wanted to provide this level of engagement in a more routine way from decision-makers in schools and government. This week, with a column by College of Lake County President Jerry Weber on Monday, we took a step toward that goal with a regular feature titled simply "Our community colleges" that we will carry on the editorial page once a month. Weber and the presidents of all seven community colleges in the Daily Herald circulation area - Joseph Collins, at College of DuPage; Kenneth Ender at Harper College; David Sam at Elgin Community College; Vicky Smith, at McHenry County College; Joianne Smith at Oakton College; and Christine Sobek at Waubonsee Community College - have agreed to take turns writing about issues confronting community colleges and the regions they support.

The goal is not to plug the schools or any of their programs in particular, but to help you get a better idea of what goes on at these mostly property taxpayer-supported institutions and how they work to make our communities better. They'll examine such broad questions as how well prepared for the modern workplace they're finding students, why particular community college programs are important, how state or federal policy decisions could affect college efforts, how the colleges research and adapt to meet the higher education needs of their communities and whatever other topic that they may be familiar with in their day-to-day experiences that we lay people in the community might not even know enough to ask about.

Community colleges play a special, indeed a unique, role in meeting the education needs of adults, and the colleges in our area help tens of thousands of suburban residents - of all ages - find pathways to meaningful personal and professional goals. This guest view will provide some direct contact for you to the decision-makers leading these institutions. We look forward to the engagement they'll provide and to developing in the future a similar degree of access to other decision-makers in school and local government leadership.

Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is an assistant managing editor at the Daily Herald. Follow him on Facebook at facebook.com/jim.slusher1 and on Twitter at @JimSlusher.