When KWVA was founded in 1994 by a group of University students, it was the intention of those students that the campus radio station would be under student ownership, control and management. The FCC license was issued to the ASUO. A board of directors with a student majority was established as KWVA’s governing body. This board was responsible for hiring the student general manager and senior staff members. One of KWVA’s core functions, after all, is to present programming from a student perspective.
However, in July 2006, KWVA ceased to be an ASUO program under student management, and instead became an EMU program under University management. The planning for this change started in May 2005, without the knowledge of most University students. KWVA officials, frustrated by the need to seek annual budget approval by the ASUO programs finance committee, concluded that the station could secure a more stable funding source if it were to become an EMU program.
Under its new status, KWVA’s board of directors was dissolved and replaced by an advisory board that has no authority over the station’s operation. The new general manager is no longer a student, but an officer of administration employed by the University. This general manager no longer reports to a student board, but rather to the EMU’s director of student activities, who is a University official. The station’s senior staff members, many of who are students, are hired, trained and supervised by this non-student general manager. (The current KWVA general manager is enrolled in the law school, but the position itself is a full-time University administrator position.)
When the FCC first issued KWVA’s broadcast license in 1994, it was issued based on the premise that the station would be under student management. The idea was that this would provide a hands-on learning experience for those students who served as the station’s general manager and senior staff members. In Sept. 2007, KWVA filed a routine biannual ownership report (FCC Form 323-E) with the FCC. This form contained false and misleading information that seemed to paint a picture of KWVA as still being under student management. If this form had been filled out accurately to reflect the fact that the station is no longer governed by a student-controlled board of directors that appoints a student general manager, I believe it would have likely raised some red flags when FCC officials reviewed the form and realized that KWVA was no longer a student-managed entity.
Notwithstanding the seriousness of the above, perhaps the most troubling matter is that University legal counsel has initiated a process to transfer KWVA’s FCC license from the ASUO to the Oregon State Board of Higher Education. Apparently, the first time that anyone in student government became aware of this was when I sent a letter to ASUO President Emily McLain on Jan. 22, 2008, apprising her of this.
I would like to urge the ASUO to strongly and vigorously resist this proposed change in KWVA’s ownership. Even though student management of the station was lost after its transition to the EMU two years ago, the ASUO’s continued ownership of the FCC license has at least guaranteed ultimate student control and oversight of the station.
However, if KWVA’s FCC license is transferred to the Oregon State Board of Higher Education, it will be the last and final nail in the coffin of KWVA as a radio station that University students have any vested interest in or ownership of.
Gerry Gazlay was a member of the KWVA board of directors from 1996 to 1999