By Jessica Ganga
Features Editor
This semester, the Arts & Entertainment section of The Signal introduced a new column, WTSR: New Noise where WTSR staff members provide new music to listen to. But according to an excerpt from 1995 article by Amy Colasurdo, the radio station members were unsure of its future. Back then, the students wanted the station to have a strong presence on campus and to have more student involvement. Ten years later, it seems like the station his here to stay.
Discrepancies in memos have led executive board members of the campus radio station, WTSR, to question the administration’s intentions for the station and seek permission to broadcast during the hours of midnight and 6 a.m.
Unsure of the station’s future, the members are also demanding that WTSR remain a student organization and that there be more student input about any changes.
A problem arose when station manager Katy White received a memo from Dr. Claire Hardgrove, vice president of Academic Affairs, in November. The memo stated that the station manager would have full voting privileges on Hardgrove’s board of broadcasting. A conflicting memo, however, was sent to the Steering Committee three days later, stating that the station member would be a non-voting member.
Hardgrove’s proposed board of broadcasting for WTSR is a panel designed for “the development of policy ... and to determine what may be in the best interest of the WTSR community.” The memo lists its members as the student government president, the chair of Communications Studies, two residents of Ewing Township, a faculty member, a professional staff member, a faculty advisor and the station manager.
According to WTSR program director Kenyatta Cheese, the discrepancies in the information are examples of being “abused as an organization. It’s reasonable for us to be this upset at this point,” he said. “We’re tired of playing little political kiddie games.”
When asked about the discrepancies, Hardgrove said, “I can’t believe that. Isn’t that funny? I have to tell you quite honestly here that what happened here, I don’t know.”
Hardgrove called the mishap “a mistake,” but did say that the station manager should be a voting member. “I feel so innocent in this debacle,” she said. “I wanted the students to just kind of be calm, keep things pretty much the way things are, and see how it works out.
“I just want it to go on until the fear that the students have is calmed and we can march ahead.”
