The 2008-2009 members of The Minnesota Daily’s Office of the Publisher were announced earlier this month.

The co-publishers – who essentially act as CEOs with equal responsibility in their respective divisions – will be Vadim Lavrusik, editor-in-chief; Robin Perez, co-publisher for organizational development and communications; and John Scholz, business operations officer.

Lavrusik, a journalism junior, began as a Daily reporter intern spring semester of his freshman year, and was also a reporter before becoming this year’s managing editor.

The Daily’s Web site has improved with additions like the A&E and sports blogs, Lavrusik said, but there is still room for improvement online.

“For the most part it’s the same thing you get in the print version,” Lavrusik said. “I’d like to give people an incentive to go on the Web site and be engaged in it.”

A newsroom blog, a student forum or chat room and an improved comments system could be in the works for next year, he said.

“We need to work to improve it so that we can generate a lot more revenue and not just be reliant on our print source,” Lavrusik said. “Who knows? Five years down the road we might not have a printed newspaper.”

Although Lavrusik turned down internship opportunities last summer to go on a South Carolina mission trip, working directly with people there helped him be a better editor this year, he said.

Perez, an animal science senior, began as a classified linage representative as a freshman because it seemed like a convenient campus job, but she quickly grew to love the work environment.

She said she’d like to see more cohesion between the newspaper’s divisions next year.

“I really want to see communication and more integration with the three divisions of the Daily,” Perez said of relations between managers. “That’s always something I’ve noticed over my time here.”

Last summer, Perez worked with baby orphan songbirds at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota in Roseville. Even though her work at the Daily is different from that, she said the skills she’s gained at the Daily can apply to any job.

Scholz, who interned with Fox Atomic Films last spring, began working at the Daily in January as a retail account executive. Scholz, a sales and marketing education junior, said the Daily’s marketing is one of its strong points.

“I think that our marketing is going to be the biggest factor to kind of getting away from the trend of declining circulation that a lot of newspapers are seeing,” Scholz said.

Scholz and the Daily business department won two awards at the College Newspaper Business & Advertising Managers convention in March.

However, he said there is always room for improvement, especially when it comes to the Daily’s involvement in campus events.

“I want to make sure The Minnesota Daily is still a staple on this campus,” he said, “and it’s very visually apparent to all the students on campus.”