During parents weekend my sophomore year in fall 2021, my parents flew to Syracuse, New York, to visit me in college for the first time.
With COVID-19, the distance and the cost of flights, my parents never moved me in or out freshman year. My sophomore year, they moved me in, and that October was the first formal visit they’d made to campus and me.
That time, with them meeting some of my closest friends, marked a significant moment in my life that I have since tried to forget. That parents weekend I remember crying on the steps to my dorm with my parents telling them I think I needed to transfer.
I had spent much of my sophomore fall semester working at The Daily Orange, working nights and some weekends covering protests, laughing with Richard Perrins and Kyle Chouinard and learning more and more about why I loved journalism and reporting.
Karoline and the fall 2021 news desk for The Daily Orange: Lilli Iannella, Richard Chang, Shantel Guzman, Karoline Leonard, Kyle Chouinard, Francis Tang and Richard Perrins.
Away from The D.O. and away from friends, I was hiding away. I was feeling more lost and depressed than I had my entire life. I felt like a ghost walking on campus. I still had perfect grades, I still had my friends. I was by no means alone, and yet every day I woke up, I felt like it was all slipping away. Panic attacks were growing more frequent, and my anxiety was taking over my life.
Deciding to transfer back to Oklahoma from my dream school solidified what I had always thought of myself — I was a failure, I had let myself down and I would never be the person I had always dreamed of becoming.
Packing my dorm life, telling my friends at SU (who have still remained friends and I think are some of the greatest people I’ve ever known), proved to be one of the hardest things I’ve done. The feeling of failure was surmounting.
Karoline with two of her closest friends at Syracuse, Julia Kasinger and Philip Tepper. Julia and Karoline have stayed close, and she misses her more than she knows.
I believed OU meant I’d never leave Oklahoma again. I believed OU equated me as a failure. I believed I would never amount to anything if I went to OU or Oklahoma.
Looking back, it all seems so ridiculous, the pressure I put on myself to be perfect or to attend the right school or to be the best at what I do.
Deciding to transfer became one of the best and most transformative experiences of my life.
Writing this column while I’m sitting in the OU Daily newsroom is surreal. Just over two years ago, I walked in here for the first time, late, and met Alexia Aston who gave me my first assignment.
Now, as I sit at the head of the center table with Peggy Dodd, Anusha Fathepure and Ismael Lele next to me, Mary Ann Livingood, Nikkie Aisha and Grayson Blalock to the right, Thomas Pablo, Kevin Eagleson, Maddy Keyes and Taylor Jones to my left and Jason Batacao and Colton Sulley in Seth Prince’s office, I think back on my two and a half years here — the days I spent editing, making decisions that formed coverage, called sources, cried in the studio, met my best friends, covered breaking news until 3 a.m. or sat in Seth’s office to gather all the knowledge he can offer.
It’s crazy to me that I sit in this room at the head of the table. It’s crazy that I lead this room. It’s crazy that I have the chance to work alongside some of the most skillful and passionate journalists I’ve ever seen.
During the solar eclipse, OU Daily went outside to cover the event and experience the once-in-a-lifetime moment together.
Left: Kaly Phan, Cassidy Martin, Peggy Dodd, Anusha Fathepure, Karoline Leonard and Olivia Lauter. Right: Karoline and news editors Peggy Dodd and Anusha Fathepure interview OU President Joseph Harroz Jr.
I was running on a treadmill at SU when I got a call from Norman, Oklahoma. Jillian Martin was on the other line asking me about my application to the Daily. She invited me to join staff once I transferred in the spring.
My time at the Daily has marked my experience at OU and has shaped me into the person and journalist I am now.
My first semester at the Daily was a blur. I would sit at the middle table, where I still sit, but instead of at the head I’d sit in the corner under the TVs. Every day, I’d focus on my assignments or various features I was working on. Every so often Jonathan Kyncl, my editor at the time, would talk to me and try to bring me into conversations.
Seth Prince, the newsroom director and adviser who I was so afraid of at the time, and Jazz Wolfe asked me to join summer staff as news managing editor. I thought I was way in over my head and unprepared to lead an entire desk.
That summer, the news staff covered the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, gun control and safety on campuses, primary elections and more. I wrote about the 50th anniversary of Title IX and how the university filed a protective order on a local journalist.
That summer, beyond the work in the newsroom, was marked with nights singing karaoke at The Deli with Megan Pratt and Bella Avila, two people who have since become some of my closest friends at OU, laughing in the newsroom and joking over Slack with Jason and Peggy and meeting one of the most important people in my life now, Colton.
After that summer, I came back as assistant news managing editor and worked alongside Alexia and Jazz to deepen OU Daily’s coverage of the city of Norman. I wrote about the effects of Roe v. Wade in Norman, the death of a local Norman fixture in the custody of the Cleveland County Detention Center, the upcoming superintendent race, OU’s new marketing campaign heading into its move to the Southeastern Conference and the legacy left by Gaylord College’s departing dean.
Outside of my personal work, the news editors alongside editor-in-chief Jillian covered the swatting incident that shut down campus on April 7, 2023. We served the OU and Norman communities who waited for over 90 minutes to hear about a possible active shooter on campus, garnering the most trafficked story in recent years and writing about the later effects of the swatting all before the sun rose the next day.
Karoline with her friends Megan Pratt, Bella Avila and Francisco Gutierrez on Campus Corner in April. OU Daily brought Karoline some of her closest friends, including Megan, Bella and Francisco.
I decided to run for editor-in-chief last spring under the encouragement of Bella, Megan, Kyncl and Francisco Gutierrez, the copy chief who I at one time disliked and now consider another extremely close and important friend of mine.
Sitting in Seth’s office, telling him I wanted to run, he told me I should only do it if I was confident I could run the room and take on all the jobs that being editor entailed. He told me he thought I could.
I remember Francisco and Bella calling me the second I walked out of the Publications Board meeting to congratulate me, and the champagne Colton got me that night. My best friends, Ilsa Rizvi and Tessa Ayers, both FaceTimed me that night.
I was terrified and felt the same as I did when I first joined The Daily Orange, when I walked into the Daily for the first time and when I accepted the job to be news managing editor over the summer.
Three days into the school year in August, I told Seth I was bored.
I wasn’t directly in charge of any reporters, and I was watching my staff and editors work. I felt like I was watching and not doing.
Seth and I sat and he asked me what I wanted to get out of this year, what I wanted to look back on when I walked across the stage at graduation or walked out of the Daily for the last time as editor-in-chief.
I don’t want to look back and regret anything, I told him.
For much of my life, there are things I have regretted or that I have looked back on and they make me view my experiences in high school, at dance practice or at SU. I didn’t want to see the Daily that way.
Seth told me to go after every story I could and to not let up until I felt satisfied. What’s funny is I don’t even know if I am now.
Over the course of this year, I’ve written the stories I am most proud of: hostile workplace allegations in Gaylord College, the effects of Gov. Kevin Stitt’s executive order calling for a review of DEI, the decreasing value of higher education, OU’s numerous open dean positions and a proposed $1 billion entertainment district that would feature a new home for OU basketball and gymnastics.
Outside of the stories, OU Daily was one of 12 media organizations in Oklahoma to receive a grant intended to fund efforts focused on building trust in its communities. The Daily introduced source diversity tracking in order to hold itself accountable. We rebuilt our engagement desk to bring a renewed strategy and focus on social media, how we manage comments and interactions online and a deepened look at analytics.
I don’t know why I’m not satisfied. I think it has more to do with my anxiety, my need for perfection or the high bar I set for myself and less to do with OU Daily or what I did here.
I have lived my life regretting a lot of different pieces of my life.
Looking back now, I see how stupid that is because all the decisions or experiences I at one time regretted, brought me to the Daily, and the Daily made me who I am.
I told Seth I didn’t want to look back in May and regret anything from this year.
There’s not a source I regret not getting, a phone call I regret making or a word I hoped I had used. I don’t regret the efforts I introduced, the people I hired, the decisions I made for our print publications or the comment sections I turned off on social media. I don’t regret the days I took off to see Ilsa in Waco or the car rides I called sources during while Tessa sat patiently in the driver’s seat.
This year made me realize that I shouldn’t regret pieces of my past. I don’t regret the people I lost touch with from high school or the clubs I joined. I don’t regret not pursuing dance professionally.
I don’t regret going to Syracuse University because I met some of the best people and was introduced to student media. I don’t regret telling my parents I want to transfer.
I don’t regret choosing OU.
Ilsa Rizvi, Karoline Leonard and Tessa Ayers on vacation in Colorado in 2022. Karoline calls Ilsa and Tessa her soulmates.
Transferring to OU helped me be closer with my family and be there for the big moments. Transferring meant I could escape to see my best friends, Tessa and Ilsa, anytime I wanted, and it helped reinforce that they'll be in my life forever. Transferring gave me OU Daily and a love for journalism.
The only thing I do regret is not cherishing what I had when I had it.
OU Daily saved my life.
It brought me Bella, Francisco, Megan and Teegan Smith and nights at The Deli singing karaoke. It brought me Jason, Taylor and Grayson and going to see movies on Thursdays or editing sports stories at night. It brought Alexia and Jazz and tea sessions in the studio.
It brought me Jillian who encouraged me every step of the way. It brought me Peggy, Anusha and Ismael who are some of the kindest and most ethical reporters and who never fail to make me laugh. It brought me Seth, who I know doesn’t fully understand how much he does for me and this entire organization and who I couldn’t thank enough. It brought me Colton and late night ice cream, screaming at Leafs games and validation every time I questioned my choices.
Karoline Leonard with Anusha Fathepure, Ismael Lele, Peggy Dodd, Seth Prince and Colton Sulley. Karoline credits these five for the reason she made it through this year.
OU Daily made me believe in journalism and myself. It gave me a home.
I can’t say goodbye to this place. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to. OU Daily did more for me than I could’ve imagined when I sat on those steps of Marion Hall at SU what seemed like forever ago and cried about transferring.
I didn’t know it then, but I was about to transfer to the best thing in my life.
Karoline Leonard is a journalism graduate. She served as a news copy editor and an assistant news editor at The Daily Orange before transferring to OU. At the Daily, she served as a news intern, news managing editor, assistant news managing editor and editor-in-chief. She interned at the Tulsa World last summer, and she will be going to Denver, Colorado, to intern at BusinessDen via the Dow Jones News Fund business reporting internship program. After that, she doesn’t know, but it’ll never be as good as OU Daily is.
This story was edited by Peggy Dodd and Anusha Fathepure. Avery Avery copy edited this story.
Read some of Karoline's work:
