Now, University President Lawrence Biondi, S.J., is trying to take control of the student newspaper. Biondi has given the newspaper an ultimatum: either the University “sponsors” the paper and selects the editors, or it must be completely independent and produced off campus, perhaps under a different name, with “some distribution rights on campus.” The Board of Trustees met last Saturday and sided with the administration. The only upside is that they have given the students a 10-day extension to voice their concerns, albeit during finals week.

So why is all this happening, you ask? Isn’t there freedom of speech and freedom of the press given to us by the Constitution? Don’t students deserve a forum to independently report on news and discuss issues? After all, they are paying upwards of $33,000 a year to attend the school and live on campus.

Ask the SLU administration why they want to take control and they’ll say it’s because they want to improve the quality of the paper. As a former editor, I will admit that there were occasional mistakes here and there, but it is supposed to be a learning experience. Each week we would go over the paper from front to back, analyze the mistakes and intend on improvement the next time around. I should also add that the paper has won numerous awards throughout the years at both state and national levels.

But ask insiders, and they’ll tell you it’s because Biondi can’t control the paper. He tried to do the same thing back in 1998 because he can’t stand the fact that students say negative things about him and the administration. In fact, an advisory board already oversees the newspaper and serves as a “resource” for the students.

Along with this advisory board, the university provides an office along with utilities – electric, Internet access, etc. – in the Busch Student Center. Other than that, the UNews is financially independent thanks to ad sales. Several independent newspapers on other college campuses, such as Student Life at nearby Washington University in St. Louis, pay rent and serve as tenants in their school buildings. The UNews suggested the idea and it was flat out turned down for no reason other than it just wasn’t an option.

Some say Biondi is planning on retiring soon and this is the last thing he has to cross off his to-do list. He built a state-of-the-art research facility, he built an on-campus arena, he hired a well-known basketball coach and he increased SLU’s endowment by $685 million. Really, he has done a tremendous amount for the school. I’ll give him that. But his action regarding the UNews has put this alumnae over the edge.

See, for so many like myself, writing for the UNews was more than just a resume builder – though the experience did help me to score a job more than any of my classes at SLU did. It was a place where everyone fit in, even if they didn’t outside the office walls. It was where we made lifetime friends. It’s where more than 30 years’ worth of students learned from our advisor, Dr. Avis Meyer.

And even though we tried our hardest not to, we made mistakes. Every Wednesday night, instead of going out to the bars with our friends, we stayed in the UNews office until 3 a.m. to put the paper together. Most of us were just doing it for fun. We loved it. Why would Biondi want to take that away? Isn’t Biondi there to ensure the best learning environments and experiences for his students? Or is it really all just about his image?

To the students faced with this challenge, I say take a step ahead of the administration. Switch the UNews to an online-only version. Everyone’s been predicting the death of print newspapers anyway. Create it using a server that doesn’t belong to the university and send it out via e-mail subscriptions. Sure, that requires revamping the admittedly mediocre Web site, but the money that previously went toward print production can be used for a good Web designer. Plus, going paperless is good for the environment.

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