2008 Woodie Awards
EDITORIALS
Issue date: 12/1/05 Section: Opinion/Editorial
- Page 1 of 1
After forum, students are still waiting for answers about the budget
At the SGA informational forum on budget cuts, actual information proved to be elusive. While it was revealed that all but 20 percent of funding for student activities was to be restored, Vice President of Students and Enrollment Management, Deborah Dey, came to the meeting with few concrete answers.
Aside from a few off-the-cuff quips about less food at hosted events and possibly less decoration (ie: flowers) on the university grounds, Dey was unable to provide students with specifics about how money was going to be saved now that the money wasn't going to be cut from student programming. A little money is going to have to be shaved from a lot of places to make up for the restored funds. Students at the forum were interested- they wanted to know from where the money was going to come. Yet they received no straight answers.
Webster is run like the federal government in the way that the taxpayers (in our case, students) pay for the expenses of the government. In the 2004-2005 school year, tuition was supposed to make up 92 percent of Webster's operating budget. That should count for something.
Citizens who want to know how their tax money is being spent only have to walk into the nearest city hall or state house to get their answers. Yet Webster students continue to hit brick walls when they ask for specifics. Even when students come prepared, armed to the brim with pointed questions, they are placated, patted on the head and given vague details about how money will be shifted around after the restoration of the student activity and employment funds.
Why is it that Vice President of Information Technologies, Larry Hafner, was brought to the meeting as a makeshift bodyguard for Dey when the czar of finance, Dave Garafola, could have answered students' specific questions about the budget? Perhaps the administrators hoped to avoid probing questions as to where money was being cut within the university with the joyful announcement that most student funding would be restored.
Both Dey and concerned students at the forum highlighted communication as a key concern amidst budget planning in the future. With Dean of Students Ted Hoef revealing the proposed budget cuts at an SGA meeting, an ill-prepared Dey coming forth to fill in only a few blanks at the forum, and a coherent budget plan still yet to be disclosed, it's beginning to look like the administration would fare better if it hired some of the university's own public relations students to revamp their crisis management strategies.
Audio and broadcast students deserve studios that actually work
For a university that prides itself on real-world education, it's odd that students in the school of communications have so few outlets for their class work. There's the regular publication of The Ampersand and The Journal, but after that things start to go virtual.
The campus-run television station, GTV, is down so often students never know if work they produce will see the light of day. KGLX has shrunk from having a broadcast radio station to an internet station to a constant malfunction. Broadcast and audio students continue to produce work for the on-again, off-again stations, but part of the fun of delving into such majors is actually seeing your own work broadcast. Not to mention that publication of work can provide entirely new insight on a project.
Professors and students emerged in the broadcast fields will provide some of the most relevant feedback students will get on their projects. But in a field where the final project is supposed to have a wide audience, students should have the opportunity to get their work out there and see how the public responds.
If Webster wants to attract students in media fields it can't keep fooling themselves into thinking virtual publication is the same as real publication. Applicants, current students and employers all know the difference. To ensure an education based in reality, Webster should make it a priority to get the School of Communications' broadcasting stations up and running. Not doing so is a disservice to the school and the students.
We at The Journal are certainly grateful for our spacious offices and new computer equipment. The tools we have allow us to produce a professional publication admired by employers in the newspaper industry. But television and radio broadcast students deserve the same level of professionalism in their schooling and equipment. Without a working TV or radio station, students won't get the exposure they need for real-world jobs.
At the SGA informational forum on budget cuts, actual information proved to be elusive. While it was revealed that all but 20 percent of funding for student activities was to be restored, Vice President of Students and Enrollment Management, Deborah Dey, came to the meeting with few concrete answers.
Aside from a few off-the-cuff quips about less food at hosted events and possibly less decoration (ie: flowers) on the university grounds, Dey was unable to provide students with specifics about how money was going to be saved now that the money wasn't going to be cut from student programming. A little money is going to have to be shaved from a lot of places to make up for the restored funds. Students at the forum were interested- they wanted to know from where the money was going to come. Yet they received no straight answers.
Webster is run like the federal government in the way that the taxpayers (in our case, students) pay for the expenses of the government. In the 2004-2005 school year, tuition was supposed to make up 92 percent of Webster's operating budget. That should count for something.
Citizens who want to know how their tax money is being spent only have to walk into the nearest city hall or state house to get their answers. Yet Webster students continue to hit brick walls when they ask for specifics. Even when students come prepared, armed to the brim with pointed questions, they are placated, patted on the head and given vague details about how money will be shifted around after the restoration of the student activity and employment funds.
Why is it that Vice President of Information Technologies, Larry Hafner, was brought to the meeting as a makeshift bodyguard for Dey when the czar of finance, Dave Garafola, could have answered students' specific questions about the budget? Perhaps the administrators hoped to avoid probing questions as to where money was being cut within the university with the joyful announcement that most student funding would be restored.
Both Dey and concerned students at the forum highlighted communication as a key concern amidst budget planning in the future. With Dean of Students Ted Hoef revealing the proposed budget cuts at an SGA meeting, an ill-prepared Dey coming forth to fill in only a few blanks at the forum, and a coherent budget plan still yet to be disclosed, it's beginning to look like the administration would fare better if it hired some of the university's own public relations students to revamp their crisis management strategies.
Audio and broadcast students deserve studios that actually work
For a university that prides itself on real-world education, it's odd that students in the school of communications have so few outlets for their class work. There's the regular publication of The Ampersand and The Journal, but after that things start to go virtual.
The campus-run television station, GTV, is down so often students never know if work they produce will see the light of day. KGLX has shrunk from having a broadcast radio station to an internet station to a constant malfunction. Broadcast and audio students continue to produce work for the on-again, off-again stations, but part of the fun of delving into such majors is actually seeing your own work broadcast. Not to mention that publication of work can provide entirely new insight on a project.
Professors and students emerged in the broadcast fields will provide some of the most relevant feedback students will get on their projects. But in a field where the final project is supposed to have a wide audience, students should have the opportunity to get their work out there and see how the public responds.
If Webster wants to attract students in media fields it can't keep fooling themselves into thinking virtual publication is the same as real publication. Applicants, current students and employers all know the difference. To ensure an education based in reality, Webster should make it a priority to get the School of Communications' broadcasting stations up and running. Not doing so is a disservice to the school and the students.
We at The Journal are certainly grateful for our spacious offices and new computer equipment. The tools we have allow us to produce a professional publication admired by employers in the newspaper industry. But television and radio broadcast students deserve the same level of professionalism in their schooling and equipment. Without a working TV or radio station, students won't get the exposure they need for real-world jobs.