She wakes up hours and hours before she has to be anywhere. She brews a cup of coffee and gets ready for the day. Inspired by Stephen King, who advises it is best to write with the door closed and desk in the corner, she barricades herself in her room doing just that. She sits at her Value Village vintage desk facing the wall as she writes. She writes for hours and hours going through at least 8 cups of coffee.

Arts & Entertainment Editor Kellie Cox is this motivated solitary writer—and she is The Spectator’s upcoming Editor-in-Chief for the 2013-2014 academic year.

Cox will be overseeing the entire paper before each print and her past experiences will prepare her for
the job.

She was a staff writer for The Spectator her freshman year, a senior staff writer her sophomore year and A&E editor this year. Not only has she built her credentials in The Spectator office, she has also completely finish her journalism degree.

Outside of Seattle University she interned with Seattle Weekly for seven months and she has done freelance work for other papers. Cox has an internship this summer in Ireland where she will shadow a business reporter for a media analysis company.

Copy/Managing Editor MacKenzie Blake believes Cox is going to be a talented Editor-in-Chief.

“She’s been a part of the paper in multiple different capacities and I think that has allowed her to take a more holistic approach to running the paper,” said Blake. “She is a great content generator and I think the quality of the paper will only improve.”

Current Editor-in-Chief Kelton Sears has worked with Cox for years and will now be handing over the paper’s responsibility to her.

“She’s the most tenacious and the most curious reporter and I know she’s most willing to take on the bigger kind of scarier stories,” said Sears. “She written a lot of stories this year that other reporters might have been afraid of and she was willing to go after it and do a really great job.”

Cox’s willingness to take on the larger stories led her to writing a long piece during fall quarter for The Spectator that she is most proud of. It was titled, “Let’s Talk About Date Rape.”

Cox was proud of the way she processed the sensitive information she gathered—interviewing about 15 people and doing extensive research.

“I was terrified the whole time I was working on it because obviously sex offense is a sensitive subject, but I wrote it because there are a lot of nuances behind date rape that people were scared to talk about, university administrators included, and I felt it was my job to… address those nuances and bring them into Seattle U’s public sphere,” Cox said.

Cox didn’t receive a single angry email.

Looking at the bigger picture, Cox’s vision for The Spectator includes continuing the layout and look of the issues this year.

However, with all real news happening online now, Cox says her main mission is to strengthen the website by growing online readership and presence.

“When I’m talking about what I envision for the paper, I’m really talking about what I envision for the website because I think the print issue is strong and little things will change,” Cox said. “I really want to remain loyal to what Kelton has done for the print issue. His goal was to make it sexier and it is definitely sexy. I want the website to be just as sexy.”

Becoming Editor-in-Chief has always been the end goal for Cox and she has made compromises to achieving that goal. Whether it was dropping one of the four choirs she is involved in at Seattle U, leaving voice rehearsals early or attending Spectator meetings late, she made the adjustments and she made it work.

Cox recently started her training for Editor-in-Chief.

She says she is excited to have a bigger picture look and a greater say than she did in the past. Cox looks forward to collaborating with her new team—continuing creative content for the print issue and transforming the website.

“I really want people to value this paper and I really want people to understand this is as much a tool for them as it is for the people who actually work here,” Cox said. “I’m very excited and I’m very proud and I really, really hope to build a stronger relationship with the campus community and I hope they are interested in the same thing.”

The editor may be reached at [email protected]