by Tyrah Burris

When freshman Nikita Kale looked at the publications on the University of Maryland’s campus, she saw plenty of news but not enough discussion of political and social justice issues that weren’t hot off the press.

“Writing about politics has always come natural to me,” the freshman political science and economics major said, “and the University of Maryland didn’t have an established political publication that I knew of for many many years so I just decided to start my own,” she said. 

That’s why she launched the Observer more than a month ago.

Its writers have covered everything from critical race theory to prescription drug prices to mask culture in 2022 to the war between Russia and Ukraine. 

In the short time it’s been around, it’s already reached a fairly large number of people: More than 250 people read an article tracing the right to bear arms and arguing that its roots are racist. 

“That was really exciting,” Kale said. 

Each writer comes up with article ideas on their own, based on what they are discussing in class and their perspectives, Kale said. 

Desmond Jordan wrote his first article on the history of African American protest music and the importance of freedom songs during the Civil Rights Movement. 

He said sharing the article made him feel like he was able to teach more people about his culture while being a Black student at a predominantly white institution.        

“The feeling of being able to have my first article actually published and having my family and friends read something that I put out made me feel proud of myself and it made me feel very accomplished,” the freshman government and politics and public policy double major said. 

Griffin Flannery, the arts editor and a freshman psychology major, wrote his first article about the symbolism of the royal crown in Roman culture, and he said even though the article was a lot of work and really stressful to get out, he enjoyed sending it to his family and being able to engage in political conversations with them which he has never been able to do before.

Kale started the publication by first reaching out to Sarah Humud, the associate director of Honors Humanities, to get advice on how starting a new publication works . Then Kale began recruiting by reaching out to people in her classes who shared a similar interest as her.

“I was already having these discussions with people, I was already talking about political issues that I cared about in different types of classes, so I just brought them on board to write about them,” she said. 

The growing paper currently has six sections – The Arts, Literature and Language, Economics, History, Health and Culture. 

Now, 26 writers make up the Observer’s staff — more than double its staff at the beginning of the semester, 10 writers on the team. The students are majoring in everything from public health to government and politics to history, Kale said. 

“No matter if we’re talking about kids who study things related to technology or English or the arts there are so many ways we can tie in political issues and social justice issues into each of these different fields and I thought it was important to start that discussion for people who needed it,” she said. 

Featured image: A collage of three Observer staff members – arts editor Griffin Flannery, editor-in-chief Nikita Kale and staff writer Desmond Jordan. Illustration by Joel Lev-Tov, photos courtesy Flannery, Kale and Jordan.