Readers of the Post-Dispatch's educational blog "The Grade" and viewers of Channel 5 News were informed last week of a rather shocking turn of events that has occurred here at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. It seems that various departments, with Student Life taking the lead, had decided that The Current, award winning student newspaper, was temporarily suspended.
To clarify the significance of two points in that statement, reflect that "award-winning" does not refer to some obscure pseudo-honor, but rather to the Missouri Collegiate Media Association's "Best in State" award. This has bestowed upon The Current for the past three years putting them ahead of SLU and Mizzou's news publications.
Likewise in need of clarification, "suspension" does not simply mean a slap on the wrist or a minor admonition; but rather that The Current (technically a student organization) is cut off from its own funding and cannot take part in regular summer cycle work of hiring and training a new administration. This also means that The Current cannot pay its employees for their two regular summer issues, the first of which is contractually obligated by the paper's publisher.
While The Current has clearly made the decision to release this summer issue regardless, the suspension remains in place tentatively until August 1, if the provisions in the disciplinary letter from Student Life are met.
One point that we as a paper would like to clearly make is this: we acknowledge that we, like any organization, have had issues. We know that some of the problems are considered severe (and reasonably so) by Student Life. The main issue in this category is payroll, alongside problems assuring that all staff members have properly filed with Human Resources.
The problem is not that we deny hitting speed bumps; the problem is that we are eager to make amends to these areas and (as we are eager to do every year) make as many changes as are necessary to better the paper; anything from tidying up confused business practices, rearranging the office, training staffers to redesigning the paper.
These are the kinds of changes that happen every summer as a new staff and Editor-in-Chief come on board, excited to take the reigns and improve the paper that we are so proud of.
This summer any such changes are, unfortunately, on the backburner. At best we are able to limitedly work on them on a volunteer basis. Additionally, the provisions for getting un-suspended include working with Student Life on training(which is not entirely in our control) and changing our constitution to what Student Life deems appropriate. What Student Life was forgetting however is that a constitutional amendment requires a 2/3 majority paid staff vote. Student Life terminated and removed all Current staff-members from payroll on May 28.
We are working with Student Life, Student Affairs and other offices to do what we can to moderate this suspension and to make our case for its easing and lifting. We want to work with them and believe that this is the first step in preventing the same issue from occurring in the future. However, this does not change the fact that we are being punished for long-standing, cross-departmental errors that have more to do with changes in staff, lack of training and a tradition of averted eyes.
We truly do wish to move forward and correct the problems mentioned in the letter.
The Current means a lot to more people both on and off campus than many readily acknowledge, in fact, there is a slew of The Current's alumni who have banded together to help us during this tumultuous time and to whom we want to extend our extreme gratitude. We just ask that we are dealt with a level of respect befitting our little award-winning publication, one that we have put so much time and heart into on a weekly basis.
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