A Student Senate member on Wednesday proposed reconsidering a decision the Senate made in November to give nearly $275,429 to the student-run radio station and make it an EMU program.
The station’s transfer from ASUO to the EMU, officially complete as of Jan. 1, made KWVA 88.1 FM a more long-term program. It created long-term reserves of money to replace equipment necessary to keep the station broadcasting 24/7, as mandated by the federal government, and it created a full-time, non-student manager position.
Student Senator Dallas Brown, the only senator to vote against the transfer in the fall, proposed the reconsideration because the decision to add a non-student manager position took the program out of the hands of students, he said.
He also said KWVA should properly document its outside funding sources, and Senate should more closely examine missing information in the future.
“This form of scrutiny is important for student government,” he said.
The Student Senate decided not to reconsider the transfer on Wednesday night because it wasn’t sure whether it had legal authority. If senators find the authority before Wednesday, when the EMU turns in its budget for next year, it will call an emergency meeting.
Based on a philosophy of “growth by demand,” Brown said, KWVA shouldn’t be allowed such a large funding increase without knowing the popularity of the radio station, which currently doesn’t conduct any listenership surveys.
“Programs should prove they’re affecting the student body,” Brown said.
He also said KWVA should provide documentation of this year’s outside funding because it has so far “provided little evidence to justify” such a large funding increase.
David Hubin, the executive assistant president, said the deal had consensus from all bodies, including the ASUO Executive, Senate, the EMU Board and the vice president for Student Affairs, prompting University President Dave Frohnmayer to approve the deal.
Hubin said whether the Senate can reverse the vote isn’t the question, but whether a similar consensus can be gathered in favor of starting over the entire process.
“We would wonder what’s different … but the mechanism is there,” Hubin said.
Senators debated whether a new $62,397 salary for a non-student was justified because the purpose of a student-run program is to provide them with professional managerial experience.
Charlotte Nisser, who acts as a KWVA part-time general manager, said that radio stations must have enough staff members to meet federally mandated airtime requirements, and a general manager makes that possible.
“(KWVA) will continue to be student owned and operated,” Nisser said, “a general manager doesn’t change that.”
From her own research of other Pacific-10 Conference schools, Nisser found that each of their radio stations had either a professional adviser or professional manager, she said.
Senator Toby Piering did his own research and found that Stanford, the University of Washington, Portland State University and the University of Arizona all require campus radio stations to be strictly student-run.
“We owe it to the other 20,000 people to read into the issue,” he said, referring to students at the University.
People at the meeting also disputed whether a job description should have been included in the November proposal, but it was added to the list of items to be looked into if Brown continues pursuing revoking KWVA’s allocations.
EMU Board member Miles Rost said that he thought the whole issue was more of a vendetta against KWVA and that senators should drop it and let the EMU Board investigate listenership.
correction:
Because of an editor’s error in Friday’s “Senators reconsider transferring KWVA 88.1,” the Emerald incorrectly reported David Hubin’s title. He is the executive assistant to the president.
The Emerald regrets the errors.
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