Members of the Board:

I wish to bring to your attention a serious problem that has developed between administrators and student leaders at Saint Louis University.

For 35 years, SLU has recognized the importance of compensating the leaders of major student organizations for their work. Long before I arrived at the University, administrators and students brokered one arrangement after another – initially spurred by President Paul Reinert, S.J. – whereby SLU guaranteed that the students who occupied various executive positions would be granted a tuition discount for their services. In the last decade, roughly half a dozen leaders received such compensation each year. When I assumed the helm of The University News in May 2004, it was long-established that whoever occupied that position would receive a full tuition discount. (The student who occupied the SGA presidency received a similar reward; other leaders received partial discounts.)

In the two years that I was editor in chief of the U. News, many things sustained my commitment to that job. My passion for journalism, my commitment to SLU, and my responsibility to my colleagues all pushed me each week to do a better job than I had done the week before; to leave the newspaper in a better state than that in which I had received it. But no single incentive ensured my professionalism like the University’s financial gift.

When no one else could take an assignment, I would; when everyone else had to go home, I stayed; when the rest of the staff took vacation, I kept hours. Social, extra curricular, even academic responsibilities were all tertiary compared to my obligation to the U. News. In short, where my colleagues could still behave like students, I knew I didn’t have that option. I understood that my classmates were paying me, through their tuition, roughly $26,000 per year to maintain the institution of The University News – which included producing a quality newspaper – and I could not have honestly accepted that gift if I didn’t do the job to the best of my ability.

Now, it seems, that assurance is in jeopardy.

At a meeting last April, University officials John Baworowsky and Phil Lyons – on behalf of President Lawrence Biondi, S.J. – informed the leaders who were currently receiving a tuition discount (the heads of the Student Government Association; Student Activities Board; Black Student Alliance; International Student Federation; the radio station, KSLU; and I)
that the tuition-remission arrangement had been changed. They told us that rather than grant a tuition discount, the school (beginning in the 2006-2007 academic year) would instead pay our successors a comparable amount of money from the Student Development budget. In other words, rather than offer an automatic discount to the students who inherited those six offices, SLU would commit significant divisional funds to be divvied up among those six leaders.

This allotment, we were told, would be dependent on factors like tuition and student population, to ensure that it could still afford to be the kind of financial incentive that the respective tuition discounts were. Mr. Lyons, in particular, mapped out the way the pot of money would be divided in the 2006-2007 year. He and Mr. Baworowsky guaranteed that our successors would not be any less compensated than we were, and that, in fact, they might even be better compensated. (For example, if a student were already receiving a full tuition discount and became the editor of the U. News or president of SGA, under the new plan he or she would still receive a significant amount of money that could be put toward books, room and board, et cetera.)

When pressed, Mr. Baworowsky admitted that Fr. Biondi had already signed off on this change, leaving us to debate a proposal that had already been enacted. This is an indicator of the kind of disregard with which University officials have treated student input on this matter. However, Messrs. Baworowsky’s and Lyons’ explanations (on behalf of Fr. Biondi) of the benefits of this change assured the six of us that this new plan was not wholly without merit. In other words, although we were upset that we were not part of the decision, we reluctantly approved of it because Fr. Biondi, Mr. Baworowsky, and Mr. Lyons – the latter of whom scores of our predecessors have trusted to guard our interests – ensured us that it would not alter the nature of the financial incentive that has undergirded major student organizations for decades.

Yet now, more than half a year since that meeting and more than two months since the beginning of this school year, the editor in chief of The University News has not received the money that those three administrators guaranteed she would. Nor has the SGA president, for that matter. As of two weeks ago, the administration confirmed that these funds were “in limbo.” (It is uncertain where the payments for the other four student leaders stand, but they are likely tied up as well.)

This is shameful. We have liars running what is arguably the most important undertaking of the University – student relations. Messrs. Baworowsky and Lyons sat in Mr. Baworowsky’s office and lied to us about the state in which we would leave our institutions. And, as they spoke on behalf of the president, Fr. Biondi lied to us as well. (I also hold the current vice president of student development, Kent Porterfield, responsible for neglecting this problem.)

I am ashamed that I approved – however tacitly – of a plan that would leave my organization in a worse state than that in which I inherited it. I am ashamed that I allowed my successor to be, thus far, deprived of a payment that she believed she would be guaranteed upon taking up the task of running the U. News. And I am ashamed that I took part – again, however indirectly – in allowing a similar situation to develop with the SGA and, possibly, SAB, ISF, BSA, and KSLU.

We must amend this situation immediately. The students who took these positions – at great academic and person sacrifice – must be granted the compensation they believed they would receive. Furthermore, the institution of the financial incentive must be preserved for future student leaders. Personally, I believe the old system to be more secure, but if the plan that was laid out last April is instated that should be sufficient.

Above all, though, this administration – from Fr. Biondi downward – cannot be allowed to get away with manipulating and ignoring student concerns. What kind of example does this set for the young men and women of the University when their president and his lieutenants are not punished – or so much as reproached – for deceiving the students’ elected representatives? While it may be fitting and proper that the president and his administrators have the power to make final decisions effecting the University, it is entirely improper that they do so without any regard for the people whom their decisions effect.

This administration – Fr. Biondi in particular – does not handle criticism well. That’s all right, as long as it does not neglect the people and institutions that produce it. I guarantee that if you, the caretakers of Saint Louis University, allow the administration to erode the professionalism of forums like student government and newspaper, it is the school as a whole – not just SGA and the U. News – that will ultimately suffer. As the U.S. District Court in New York put it in 1971 when it allowed The New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers,

The security of the Nation is not at the ramparts alone. Security also lies in the value of our free institutions. A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, an ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the public to know.

The same is true for the stability of a university. The healthiest, happiest, most successful school is the one whose students, faculty, and staff are free to criticize the administration. And the legitimacy and civility of this criticism – whose presence is inevitable – is guaranteed by institutions like student government and newspaper.

Withholding these leaders’ financial incentives – and, possibly, suspending them indefinitely – deals an irreparable blow to SLU’s free institutions and the discourse they ensure, and, in turn, to the health of the University itself.

Throughout my time at SLU, it was always guaranteed that any leader willing to take up the task of maintaining one of the major student organizations would be compensated by the University. We are at a fragile point where leaders might, for the first time in decades, cease to believe that promise. If you allow the University’s credibility to wane in this way, you will effectively stunt the development of rising leaders. Allowing this suspension to continue any longer – or allowing the institution of the financial incentive to lapse permanently – would be the equivalent of breaking the kneecaps of these student groups: It will not entirely disable them, but it will significantly cripple them for the rest of their existence. (I cannot help but wonder whether it is neglect or malice that is leading us to this state; whether the administrators of this school would not, in their short-sightedness, prefer these organizations to be so undercut.)

You must reinstate these financial incentives immediately, as well as establish a way to guarantee them beyond this school year. Furthermore, you must punish Fr. Biondi and Messrs. Baworowsky and Lyons for their inexcusable behavior from last April onward. Students should not be allowed to think that it is acceptable to the University that administrators manipulate and ignore student leaders. They should not be allowed to think that the way to succeed in government, business, or academic politics is always by using whatever means are available – and never by the means that are right. And they should not be left to conclude that even a Jesuit university can no longer preserve shared government and civil disagreement.

Orderly opposition is to be suffered, not enjoyed. These administrators, in undercutting institutions like student-run government and newspaper (either through neglect or malice), undercut themselves as well.

Just as the financial incentive checks the immaturity of student leaders, the student leaders in turn check the actions of the administration. It is the kind of antagonistic reciprocity upon which our country – and its myriad institutions – has survived for centuries. Do not allow it to be swept away by men who are too petty and self-deluded to sacrifice the illusion of their own infallibility for the sake of a more perfect community.

Sincerely,

[signed]
Andrew Ivers ’06
Editor in Chief
The University News
2004-2006