This academic school year was not only my last year at The Montclarion, but my first.
If you’re wondering what I did as creative director, my job was to oversee the production of the four magazine issues that came out this academic school year. I also designed the covers, created the game sections, drew silly pictures on the hawk talks, and did a bunch of small things to make the readings more fun.
I enjoyed many aspects of this experience. Getting to show people the covers that would be all across campus, designing spreads, and simply getting to meet a whole bunch of new people. That last point is what I would like to focus on because I do feel it was the most important part of my experience.
First of all, I met everyone on The Montclarion E-board; each of them taught me so much about passion and drive. Not that I wasn’t passionate and driven before meeting them, but I saw those things present themselves in ways I would have probably only seen on-screen. Whether it was journalists bending over backwards to get interviews or a team communicating in the middle of the night to make everyone on campus aware of breaking news, I was continuously impressed with the lengths people on this team would go to grab a great story.
I also met five amazing young designers. Each of them worked on issues 5-7 of The Montclarion magazine, and each of them completed work that blew me away. When I asked them to jump they would respond, “How high?” and when I gave them a height, they would soar beyond it. Some of my favorite spreads in the last few magazines aren’t even my own, and I will proudly guide anyone interested through each magazine to tell them who designed what.
But the real people that I came to know better through this experience were the people of our campus — the people we were continuously writing about. This began for me in magazine issue #5: The Essentials Edition. I truly wanted to design this spread since it featured The Montclarion’s first-ever Player of the Year article. It was the first time I felt a sense of existential inspiration and awe. As I read the article, I thought, “Wow, this person goes to the same school as me, that’s crazy.” I was so moved by this feeling that I wanted to push for our next magazine to be themed around that emotion. The next magazine would be entitled: Student Excellence.
This was a vital issue to me because it used the influence of The Montclarion to inspire others as I had been. We highlighted individuals with incredible talent, with amazing goals, and with fantastic true stories.
When I first applied to the university, it was because I had an art teacher who graduated from MSU and ended up gaining amazing work opportunities. After my initial acceptance, the University’s acceptance rate shot up from approximately 75% to 96%. Because of that metric, it’s sometimes easy to feel that admissions let “anyone” into the school. And because of my insecurities, it was easy to feel like I could be a part of that “anyone”. But with that issue, I felt that I did something meaningful. The idea that I was able to make people feel that they made the right choice with this school felt … rewarding.
Hopefully someone else will get a hold of that magazine and see those stories and say, “I want to go to this school and do something great.”
As I leave The Montclarion, I want to ask you all to strive to accomplish something impactful. Have an amazing story to tell. Reach your goals and create new ones. But most importantly, meet people. Connect, create, and inspire.
Thank you.
— Tom Sheridan, Montclarion Creative Director 2025-2026, Montclair State University Class of 2026
