2008 Woodie Awards
Junior Considers Message Admin. Sends
Aubrey Krekeler
Issue date: 5/4/07 Section: Letters to the Editor
To the Editor:
Censorship. It's such a dirty word. Especially in the U.S. Especially on a college campus. Especially on my college campus.
On Monday, April 30, the Saint Louis University administrators informed the editorial board of The University News that a new charter had been created without any input from The University News staff. The board was given the option of (1) leaving campus and becoming completely independent, or (2) accepting this new charter. The minute details of the new charter remain unclear, but the conditions include the university would have the final word in the hiring and firing process of any University News staff writers and editor positions. The Board of Trustees may make the decision to retain or rescind the current charter by Saturday, May 5, at which time the administration will consider the ratification of the new charter.
As a junior here at SLU and as a contributing editorial writer, I find the above situation extremely disconcerting. Saint Louis University fundamentally exists for the sake of education. It is an institution of higher learning, a breeding ground for knowledge, new ideas and the marriage of both. If no other place in society can act as a forum where ideas are challenged, opinions expressed and people learn a college campus is this. We are taught inside the buildings across this campus that it is our right, our responsibility, to consider, to raise questions, to gain perspective and broaden our views on the world.
And yet, it appears that the administrators at SLU are trying to bottle that curiosity they advocate in the classroom, so that the questioning and the criticism only pertain to those things that are outside of SLU, to those things that do not offend or rub people the wrong way.
Vice President of Student Development Kent Porterfield's response to several student letters is the diplomatic answer to the campus outrage this issue is causing. "I can't stress enough that the changes we are suggesting are not in any way to try to silence the student newspaper," he said in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on Thursday. "It is about trying to create a stronger newspaper."
Censorship. It's such a dirty word. Especially in the U.S. Especially on a college campus. Especially on my college campus.
On Monday, April 30, the Saint Louis University administrators informed the editorial board of The University News that a new charter had been created without any input from The University News staff. The board was given the option of (1) leaving campus and becoming completely independent, or (2) accepting this new charter. The minute details of the new charter remain unclear, but the conditions include the university would have the final word in the hiring and firing process of any University News staff writers and editor positions. The Board of Trustees may make the decision to retain or rescind the current charter by Saturday, May 5, at which time the administration will consider the ratification of the new charter.
As a junior here at SLU and as a contributing editorial writer, I find the above situation extremely disconcerting. Saint Louis University fundamentally exists for the sake of education. It is an institution of higher learning, a breeding ground for knowledge, new ideas and the marriage of both. If no other place in society can act as a forum where ideas are challenged, opinions expressed and people learn a college campus is this. We are taught inside the buildings across this campus that it is our right, our responsibility, to consider, to raise questions, to gain perspective and broaden our views on the world.
And yet, it appears that the administrators at SLU are trying to bottle that curiosity they advocate in the classroom, so that the questioning and the criticism only pertain to those things that are outside of SLU, to those things that do not offend or rub people the wrong way.
Vice President of Student Development Kent Porterfield's response to several student letters is the diplomatic answer to the campus outrage this issue is causing. "I can't stress enough that the changes we are suggesting are not in any way to try to silence the student newspaper," he said in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on Thursday. "It is about trying to create a stronger newspaper."
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