The Falcon   |   Volume 81, Issue 26

Published 6/02/10   |   Log In

Media budgets under Finance Board review

Ashton Hall Senator Matt Van Deren asks for clarity on an issue during finance board's proposal on student media budgets.
Photo credit: LAURA EASLEY/The Falcon.

KSPU, Lingua feel blindsided by resolution

By MELISSA STEFFAN, Assistant News Editor

Published: October 7, 2009

Editor's note: The resolution this article concerns, 2009-2010-04: ASSP Media Review, is available for your perusal. [PDF]

Correction: In the Oct. 7 issue of The Falcon, the article titled “Media budgets under financial board review” incorrectly stated that Senate amended Finance Board’s resolution regarding media budgets. Senate did not amend the resolution itself. Members of Senate amended a motion to send an email to all media groups in order to clarify that the resolution reflected only the opinion of Finance Board.

Senior Alex Binz resigned from his position as acting chair of the Board of Student Media at 8:17 p.m.

He was appointed as one of three justices on ASSP judicial board at approximately 9:30 p.m.

Twenty minutes later, BSM and student media groups felt the blow.

Finance Board declared its vote of no confidence in the proposed 2009-2010 media budgets to Senate on Monday night during their first meeting of the year. These budgets currently total over $125,000, Vice President of Finance Sean Lomas said.

This decision was detailed in a 3-page resolution, which included allegations against individual media organizations and called BSM ineffective.

Binz agreed with the resolution. He said the current structure of BSM renders it incapable of being efficient.

"BSM doesn't work," Binz said. "Right now, no one is in a position to make a change."

Due to Binz's resignation as chair, BSM will now be unable to make quorum and unable to function.

Senior Kevin McFarland, ASSP president, said that problems within individual media groups stem from a lack of efficient oversight from BSM, their overall governing body.

According to the resolution, some media groups may not receive funding this year if they are not in compliance with BSM guidelines.

"BSM guidelines state that KSPU should broadcast every day there is school in session; they currently are not," Lomas said.

Collecting, training and recruiting volunteer student DJs takes time, said junior Aaron McConkey, KSPU station manager.

"I don't know of a year when KSPU has been broadcasting on the first academic day," he said.

The KSPU website, which is central for broadcasting the station, is not yet up and running, McConkey said. KSPU's first broadcast is planned for October 20.

This was not the only reason Finance Board cited its lack of confidence in media groups.

ASSP paid to send over 200 student leaders to Warm Beach Camp in Stanwood, Wash., for Leadership Conference in September. McFarland said students who signed but failed to attend Leadership Conference could receive punitive action for irresponsible use of ASSP funds.

The 2009-2010 Voluntary Service Agreement, signed by all student media leaders, requires ASSP Student Leadership Conference attendance.

"We talked about it as a whole and decided it would be a waste of time," said senior Thomas Castle, editor-in-chief of Lingua.

The decision not to attend the overnight trip to Warm Beach was a statement worth making, he said. Lingua leaders did attend the on-campus leadership events, he said.

McConkey was the only KSPU leader present at Warm Beach. Had he known this would put KSPU's budget in jeopardy, he would have been stricter about enforcing attendance, McConkey said.

Members of media groups said they felt blindsided by the resolution and were unaware that budget issues were a concern.

The concerns are fair and reasonable, but they should not have gone behind our backs, Castle said.

"We're going to defend where defense is needed," he said.

Lomas stressed that Finance Board has not yet taken any action against media groups. "We want the Senate body to be in discussion and then to go out and talk to media groups," he said.

Finance Board intended to inform student media after the Senate discussion, but not before it, Lomas said. The resolution was a regular committee report, not a voting issue, so it was not policy to inform media groups.

Media budgets were not the only ones to come under Finance Board scrutiny. Ministries budgets also received a vote of no confidence.

Junior Chris Kyle, vice president of ministries, said he has already begun to meet with the Campus Ministry Council to re-format those budgets.

There was no resolution regarding ministries budgets and individual ministries were already informed of Finance Board's recommendation at the time of the meeting.

The media resolution included history of media organizations, dense material for new senators struggling to process information, said sophomore Matt Van Deren, Ashton Hall senator.

Senate unanimously voted to amend the resolution to state that it does not represent the view of Senate as a whole, only Finance Board's recommendations.

They wanted to clarify that the opinion belonged to Finance Board, and not the senators, said senior Ari Diamant, senator for College of Arts and Sciences: Science and Engineering. This does not necessarily mean that all senators disagreed with the resolution; people were arguing both ways, he said.

Sophomore Kate Jendersee, Hill Hall senator, said she did not have enough information to form a well-rounded opinion on the issues presented in the resolution.

"The discussion would have happened anyway, but we are one student body and we should have involved everybody first," she said.

Senate's other amendment was to invite a response from student media leaders and advisers. Executive Vice President Brittany Harwell sent an e-mail to student media coordinators and advisers at 3:43 p.m. on Tuesday, requesting a response by Thursday evening. Finance Board will present the proposed media budgets to Senate next week with the no-confidence vote, regardless of media responses.

However, Lomas said the intent of the Finance Board was always to support the media. "It's not ASSP versus the media," he said. "We want to address these things to improve them in favor of the students."

In other news:

Junior Harrison Dietzman, senator for the College of Arts and Sciences: Humanities, resigned from his position with ASSP.

Senate unanimously voted to fix the end time of Senate meetings at 11 p.m. unless changed by a simple majority vote.

Seniors Brice Budke, Christalyn Steers and Alex Binz were unanimously appointed as justices on the judicial board. The judicial board currently has two unfilled seats, which Budke, who will serve as chief justice, hopes will be filled by underclassmen.

Senate unanimously approved McFarland's proposal to create a task force to evaluate the current model for deciding student leader compensation and stipends.

Senate unanimously passed a proposal to create a judicial board review task force in order to evaluate the functioning of the judicial board within its first year.

© 2008-2010 The Falcon        Contact        Advertise        SPU.edu