How often do you see a mainstay journalistic institution run a website devoted to young people? Not often. How often do you see them do it well? We’re inclined to say never. When we are in the news, we’re either the “failure to launch” generation or the apathetic narcissists. Or, at the news cycle’s most bleak, we’re just the impossible hipsters. It’s enough to make a self-respecting millennial rage-quit the internet.

But wait! There’s a magazine that’s willing to try something. And they want help. The Nation is the oldest weekly magazine in the US, and they have been running a student-oriented site since 2007. StudentNation (as it is currently called) finds solid writing from people in our age cohort on things otherwise written about by out-of-generation observers: Student debt, contraception, protest. They’ve even republished some of our work. Now they’d like to go a whole lot further.

NYU Local editor in chief Zoë Schlanger is helping relaunch the site, so obviously she’s coming to you, dear readers of NYU Local. You can read the elevator pitch below, but here’s the gist: What should they rename it? What should it cover? Who should write for the site? Get to it in our comments or theirs. She’ll be eternally grateful, and who knows, our generation might escape trend piece-ification for once. 

Call For Ideas: StudentNation Gets A Fresh Coat Of Paint

For the past five years, StudentNation has been a platform for voices from the millennial generation. Our blog has featured writing by high-school and college students, recent graduates, twenty-somethings and, less frequently than we’d like, people of college age not in school.

Recently, we’ve focused on the Occupy Colleges movement, global student protests against tuition hikes and austerity budgets, national curriculum battles and the politics of student journalism, and we’ve been delighted to be able to play a small role in amplifying the voices of young people in the critical debates of the day.

But we aspire to do much more. So, beginning this fall, StudentNation is expanding. We’ll be producing far more content, highlighting a wider range of voices and tapping into a broader scope of topics far beyond the specific interests of matriculating students.

Here’s where you come in: We’re considering changing our name to better reflect the particular insight of not just students, but the generation for whom our coverage of student debt, national movements, university politics, exploitive internships and contemporary culture is immediately tangible. We’re very open to suggestions, so please post ideas for new names in the comments.

We’d also like to know what issues are important to you, and how we can better cover them. Who should be writing for us? What student and alternative publications should we partner with? What issues should we be covering? Tell us in the comments.

We can’t wait to hear from you!