Observer Department: Editorial
Two-Party System Undermines Democracy
This year we have the largest, most diverse group of presidential candidates I’ve ever seen. They vary from uber-conservative to bleeding-heart liberal and fill the entire spectrum in between. It seems as if there are far too many to fit them all comfortably into the two-party system that we demand.…
Meta Toolkit
A news employee wears a lot of hats, especially on a small, student-run paper like this one. That can be a really good thing! It’s a great opportunity to learn a whole lot of valuable skills and acquire some very useful knowledge. To take the best possible advantage of that,…
Why it’s Important to Write Well
It's not always important for your writing to be clear. The thing that's important, for a journalist, is to know why, sometimes, it should be clear, and why sometimes it doesn't need to be -- because it really, really needs to be in a newspaper. The vast majority of people…
Veterans Association
Background: Through online research, I found that NECC is one of seven (out of a total of 15) Mass. community colleges (CC) without a private veterans area. The nearest CCs to NECC, North Shore CC and Middlesex CC, both have particularly large veterans area, which are fully furnished with tables…
NECC Releases New Mission Statement
In 2014 NECC began developing a new mission statement to replace the previous one which has been in place since 1992. The new mission statement has been finalized. “At NECC, our mission is to educate and inspire our students to succeed. We provide a welcoming environment focused on teaching and…
Textbooks should be less expensive
It’s the start of a new semester, which means it’s time to take new classes, meet new teachers and purchase egregiously expensive textbooks. In a country where politicians frequently claim to be supportive of education and making information available, it sure is difficult to afford the materials required to succeed…
Should NECC celebrate Columbus?
Columbus Day has been a controversial holiday for a long time. There are several reasons for the controversy; first, it’s generally understood to celebrate Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America. Which he didn’t do. What Columbus discovered was the Bahamas, and he only found them because he expected to be able…
Editorial: The NECC Observer is free-press and student run
Newspapers have more than one function. They serve to inform, create engagement, provide a voice for a community, sometimes entertain, and function as watchdogs against corruptions and abuses in a community. Free publicity is not among these functions. Journalists report on the good and the bad to accurately communicate the…
Editorial: Welcome back to NECC
Summer semester is over and NECC is preparing to welcome new students and old into the Fall 2014 semester. There has been construction re-paving areas by the Sports and Fitness Center and Spurk (C) building on the Haverhill campus, and Lawrence has seen considerable progress over the last year in…
Summer finally upon us
Monday signified the last day of classes for the spring 2014 semester. For many students of NECC, they will be walking away from the Haverhill or Lawrence campuses and move on to a four year school. Many students will take summer classes. Some will move on and head straight to…
