As student journalists we always tend to be close to the heart of campus.

Whether that means we are at your sporting event, telling you what’s going on close to campus this weekend, when you can take a library tour or featuring your registered student organization.

However, with covering the happy highlights of campus comes covering the not so happy things that happen around us.

The worst of these is writing stories about members of the community dying. As we work on campus, we get to know the students, professors, food and building service workers and many more individuals through our work.

So when we get on social media and see someone from our campus community has died, it’s a blow. It’s something we never want to hear or see flash across our screen. We don’t enjoy reaching out to the family and friends of the deceased to hear them cry as they share memories of their loved one. This Fall we are more concerned than ever that we will have to write those stories for our campus community due to people not taking the necessary steps to protect themselves and those around them this semester.

We at The Daily Eastern News ask that the campus and surrounding communities do their part to keep our community as safe as possible from COVID-19.

It has already taken too many moments from us.

Walking the stage, the last class with a favorite professor, saying goodbye to friends before they go on their next adventure in life and much more was taken from us. We ask that this semester you do your part to make sure we are all safe and healthy at the end of the year.

Please don’t make us write a story from the perspective of a student who is bed-stricken due to COVID-19. Please don’t make us write a story about how all classes are online because too many students went out for a night out and made the positive test numbers spike.

Please don’t make us write your obituary this Fall