Groggily clutching Styrofoam coffee cups, a steady stream of half-conscious students files into the Willard Building each morning. In an automatic gesture, the students reach out and grab a copy of The Daily Collegian as they make their way through the first set of doors.

Without fail, a crisp pile of newspapers appears there each weekday morning to be read, analyzed, critiqued or just used for the crossword puzzle.

It's always there. That's the beauty of the Collegian.

Say what you will about the Collegian — too liberal, too conservative, too flippant, too serious, too many mistakes too often — but realize how lucky you are to go to a university with a thorough, reliable, independent, student-run daily newspaper.

Plenty of schools aren't so lucky. Most student newspapers are published once a week, so that by the time they reach the readers' hands, the news inside is already stale and irrelevant.

Some other student newspapers publish daily, but their quality doesn't always match that of the Collegian. (If you've ever picked up a copy of the Pitt News, you'll see that sports aren't the only thing we top them on.)

As a matter of fact, the Collegian just got notification yesterday that it won a prestigious Gold Crown Award from Columbia University, which designates it as one of the six best college newspapers in the nation.

Admittedly, I'm biased. I've been neck-deep in Collegian involvement since I was a wide-eyed first-semester freshman. Since then, my involvement and expertise have increased with each semester.

But it wasn't until last semester that I truly came to appreciate having a daily student newspaper.

I studied abroad in Australia last semester at a school that was pretty much perfect except for one detail: its newspaper came out only twice a month, and it was run by the student government rather than an independent group of writers and editors. As you can imagine, the coverage wasn't particularly critical of the student government that published it. Nor was it very helpful in keeping students up-to-date about breaking news on our campus.

I missed having a daily dose of unbiased information about my university while I was in Australia. I felt out of the loop when it came to campus affairs, and it was hard to keep up with events and issues without having the luxury of seeing a newspaper each morning.

The Collegian isn't perfect. But we do our best to give you a summary of the day's events, interesting feature stories and previews about upcoming events. Every weekday.

You can help us fulfill our responsibility to provide you with accurate, comprehensive daily coverage by contacting us when you think there's an article we should write. Our reporters and editors do their best to stay alert and keep on top of Penn State news, but the Collegian staff doubles as full-time students with lives and other jobs, and we aren't always aware of every potential story.

To contact us with story ideas, you can call us at (814) 865-1828 or fax us at (814) 863-1126. Or you can e-mail individual reporters and editors — our e-mail addresses are listed on the Digital Collegian (www.collegian.psu.edu).

Or, if you want to get even more involved, try out to be a part of the staff. Tryouts began last night, but there are two more sessions left. Grab a bluebook and come to our office at 6 today. We're at 123 S. Burrowes St.

Join the staff and find out how the newspaper magically materializes each weekday.