Seniors Katie Heim and Brooke Lewis are the editors-in-chief of the new St. Edward’s chapter of Her Campus, an online community for college women. The chapter site launched on Jan. 21.

Her Campus is focused on the female college experience and offers content on style, relationships and love, health, beauty and career development.

“It’s just a site for college girls to come together and write stories that are more centrally focused to their university,” Heim said.

Since each university chapter is part of the larger Her Campus community, prospective editors have to apply to start their own university chapters. Heim and Lewis began the process of setting up the chapter last semester. The two prospective editors had to send in their resumes and writing samples. Once accepted, they had to go through training on how to manage the site. 

“It was actually kind of a long process,” Lewis said. “They wanted to make sure we were credible writers, and that we could be editors.”

Once their application was accepted, Heim and Lewis had to put together a staff of St. Edward’s writers to begin work on their first week of content.

“Brooke and I are really operating independently,” Heim said. “We live together, so it’s run out of our apartment.”

Heim and Lewis decided to start a St. Edward’s chapter to give the university’s female population a platform to discuss life on the hilltop. “There are a lot more women at St. Edward’s than boys, and I think we all have these shared experiences. It’s great to have a platform where we can discuss these things and share these stories,” Heim said.

Her Campus requires certain content for each chapter site. The content must fall under Campus Cutie, Campus Celebrity, style, beauty, health or career. Besides these categories, the St. Edward’s chapter can include what they see fit on its website. Heim and Lewis want to break away from the main site’s typical look. 

“Like for Campus Cutie we can do anybody. It doesn’t have to be like the stereotypical cute sports guy on the basketball team. We’re open to anybody, like girls. It doesn’t matter race or sexual orientation. We’re open to involving everyone on campus,” Lewis said.

Heim and Lewis also saw the launch of Her Campus as an opportunity to showcase the unique environment St. Edward’s has.

“St. Edward’s is a small school and it doesn’t always get the recognition that it should get,” Lewis said. “So, I feel like putting it out there, especially on a national website like that, would help people learn about it.”

Since Heim and Lewis are both seniors, they will have to find someone new to take over for next semester. 

“I really want to grow in the next couple of months, grow our presences and people will realize ‘Oh my gosh, this is a cool thing,’ and then a sophomore or junior will want to take this over. I’m confident we’ll find someone who wants to do that,” Heim said.

Although Her Campus is focused on college women, any St. Edward’s student is welcome to contribute to the site. 

Heim and Lewis said they are always looking for writers.