Editor’s Note: As the editors of The University News are deeply involved in the issues discussed here, we have refrained from covering this matter in detail. We publish this article to provide a brief and objective summary of the facts. Fuller coverage is available in recent issues of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other media outlets. The University News’ editorial response, as well as many letters to the editor on the subject, can be found on pages A4-A7.

Questions have arisen regarding the future of The University News, Saint Louis University’s student newspaper, in the aftermath of a meeting between the editorial board and University administrators. The University News met with Vice President for Student Development Kent Porterfield, Ed.D., and Provost Joe Weixlmann, Ph.D., on Monday, April 30. Concerns over proposals to rescind the paper’s current charter have led to resolutions by the Student Government Association and the Arts and Sciences Faculty Council and caught the attention of local media.

Porterfield and Weixlmann said that they planned to ask the Board of Trustees, the governing body of the University, to rescind the paper’s current charter at a meeting later that week. Editors were told that they could either continue working for a University-sponsored publication under a new charter that administrators had already written, or they could attempt to create an independent, off-campus newspaper of their own.

The new charter that Weixlmann and Porterfield presented mandates a number of changes for the paper. It provided for the creation of two new University staff positions-a student media coordinator and a newspaper production adviser-who would supervise and assist SLU’s student journalists. It also altered the process of hiring and firing members of the paper’s editorial board; where these decisions had previously been essentially internal decisions, the new charter stipulates that editors be hired through the paper’s Advisory Board and approved by the vice president for student development. The vice president for student development was also empowered to dismiss editors because of “misconduct or failure to perform their responsibilities adequately.”

Porterfield said that administrators had made the changes because of a desire to improve the quality of the paper, and said that The University News suffered from frequent typographical errors and sometimes featured opinions in news stories.

Some students and faculty members expressed doubt about the administration’s intentions and worried that changes in the charter would endanger the paper’s ability to report and editorialize freely.

On Wednesday, the Student Government Association Senate unanimously passed a resolution to “preserve the editorial independence of The University News.” A provision in the resolution urges the Board of Trustees to table any motion to rescind the paper’s current charter, allowing more time for discussion between students and administrators. For further reporting on the resolution and the debate in the senate, see “2007-2008 senate, president inaugurate.”

Following negotiations with outgoing SGA President Evan Krauss, administrators presented a new version of the charter to the current editor in chief and the editor in chief-elect minutes before Wednesday’s SGA meeting. The editorial board said that it will respond to the new version of the charter by Monday, May 7.

On Thursday, the Arts and Sciences Faculty Council unanimously approved a resolution similar to the one passed by SGA in that it also called for the Board of Trustees to delay a vote on rescinding The University News’ charter.

Contention over the new charter has attracted the attention of the local media. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch had published two articles on the topic as of Thursday, May 3, and KMOX radio, KSDK news, Donnybrook and numerous blogs have all considered the issue.