As we begin a new semester, I want to welcome you to the Daily Campus opinion page. Hopefully, the arguments you read here will keep you thinking about the issues that affect you.

It’s our goal to make the opinion page a dialogue. Our columnists will offer their opinions, but in a school of thousands, we’d like to hear more viewpoints. SMU students are nothing if not opinionated and we’d like this page to be the forum in which they debate the day’s happenings.

We’d love to hear what you think about the school and the world. There are a number of ways to get involved in the conversation.

We welcome any guest columns. Generally, they should be between 500-1000 words. If we’ve missed an issue you think we should have covered, this is the best way to get people talking about it.

If you disagree with one of our columns or editorials, answer it directly in a letter to the editor. These usually run between 250-500 words and take issue with something already published.

Last semester, we began an occasional feature titled “For Your Consideration” and opened it up for submissions to the student body. This is the place to suggest a book, movie, song, or play that affects your worldview and that you think everyone should know. Give a brief synopsis and tell why it means something to you.

The crazier the world gets, the more we need to laugh about it. Political satire is a good way to keep us all from taking the news too seriously.

If you like to draw, we’d love to have some original cartoons on the page. Feel free to lampoon anything of anyone, but also try to keep it within the bounds of respectful discourse.

We’re always welcome to new ideas, too. If there’s something you want to try, give it a shot and let us see it. We can’t guarantee that we’ll publish everything you submit, but we can promise that we’ll give it our full consideration.

If you’re interested in writing something, contact me at [email protected] or my associate editor, Jessica Huseman, at [email protected]. Hopefully, we’ll give you things to think about throughout the semester and get you talking. We’re looking forward to hearing what you think.

Again, welcome back to SMU. I hope you have a great semester.