Photo by Mariko Kuroda/The Gazelle

Candidate Weekend on Saadiyat is a dangerous time; the sight of future NYU Abu Dhabi students, boasting eager smiles and a certain brand of purple-lanyard optimism, can make one prone to long bouts of introspection — or worse, nostalgia. Two semesters abroad and a return that’s not a return to NYUAD have made us think hard about our time here, and what words such as continuity, growth and change can mean at a university like this one.

To see The Gazelle come together in a team represented by all the classes at NYUAD seems fitting; such a mix is congruous with a university where new mingles with old, beloved traditions are superimposed onto unfamiliar places and goodbyes and hellos crowd the three fleeting weeks of January Term. Out of this experiential hodgepodge, we hope to find the opportunities for both growth and consistency.

The two new Video and Creative desks at The Gazelle, headed respectively by senior Joi Lee and junior Nadeen Alami, aim to translate core values into new, innovative initiatives. Similarly, The Gazelle’s goal to include more interactive media in future articles will continue its efforts towards thorough, investigative journalism, all the while rethinking the ways in which we can provide students the space to tell important stories.

As we move forward, our energy will be dedicated to making sure The Gazelle is always dynamic, always shifting alongside the university in meaningful ways. Student criticism and feedback will be necessary for this — discord, maybe, as well. The spaces we grow from are sometimes uncomfortable: the strange, fraught intersections of new and old, expectation and error.

As The Gazelle embarks on its third year, we look forward to what lies ahead.