We’re launching a new blog today called Speak Up and we sincerely hope you’ll do just that.

We work, live and go to school on a campus whose population wanes by night. With so much change continually going on at the University it’s hard to feel a part of a community as commuters or as residents.

To foster a sense of community across the University, we made a blog to let student leaders start discussions about what’s going on in the diversity of communities we have on campus.

In addition to student leaders, members of the University staff will blog as well. This gives students a unique new chance to get an inside look on how policies are shaped as well as interact with administrators through our blog system.

Despite our efforts to create this blog, we aim to remain independent from its content. This new part of our site will not be moderated or affiliated with the newsroom of The Minnesota Daily. The bloggers are not paid for their posts and remain as independent contributors. The Daily will not endorse any of the views or statements made by the bloggers.

However, as journalists we think it is just as much a part of our mission to encourage debate and the exchange of ideas. At the Daily, we want to inform students and provide a forum in which they can voice their opinions. We want this blog to serve that very purpose.

We hope this blog will be a tool for the University community to come together to present new ideas, talk critically about things big and small and gain an awareness of what’s going on around campus.

Student leaders and faculty will present topics of debate, their views on particular subjects, and ask for feedback on specific issues surrounding their community or the entire University student body.

Anyone who visits our Web site will be able to give feedback by posting their opinions through a comment box. We hope this will fuel discussion on the subjects presented and the readers of the blog will speak up and voice their concerns.

This is an easy way for students and community members to get more involved, to be heard, and to plug into what’s going on.

Check it out at www.mndaily.com/speakup and speak your mind because we want to hear from you on there. We’re excited about the potential of this project and welcome comments from you. And if you’re a student group, you’re welcome to join.

Vadim Lavrusik is the managing editor and Chris Roberts is the multimedia editor at the Daily. They welcome comments at [email protected] or [email protected].