2008 Woodie Awards
Montclarion editor speaks through the silence
Issue date: 1/30/08 Section: Editorial
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Peter Schaus
Managing Editor
The Montclarion
Normally, we'd express our dissatisfaction in the Opinion section of The Montclarion. Unfortunately, the SGA has frozen our budget and ceased production on the printed version of our publication.
On the front page of our paper, it says that The Montclarion is "The Student Voice of Montclair State University (MSU) Since 1928." This is a motto that is carried out through every aspect of our publication. It is our job to reflect the student experience as it stands at MSU. It's not our job to write press releases for our university and its bureaucratic heads.
Which isn't to say that there aren't great aspects of MSU. We're in the middle of a historic period of growth for the university. What was once a commuter school is quickly becoming a self-contained community. But MSU is far from a utopian society. The campus' expansion has made resources far more limited, especially in terms of parking and housing. For every new building, there's another one that has become old and run-down. For years, the residents in Freeman Hall (myself included) had been living with inconsistent heating, forcing many to use space heaters in the dead of winter. Countless work orders were filed but no progress seemed to be made. The Montclarion broke this story in January of 2007. As of now, the heating in Freeman Hall is in working order.
It's stories like this that makes our work at The Montclarion worthwhile. We've learned firsthand that the power of the press is integral in exposing what others would prefer to remain hidden, thereby forcing change.
It's public knowledge now that the impetus behind the halted production of The Montclarion has to do with several important public meetings that were held behind closed doors. We have a unique situation here at MSU wherein the university gives the Student Government Association (SGA) over $1 million a year of student fees to spend on student organizations and on-campus programming. In its weekly Wednesday meetings, the SGA decides how these filtered public funds will be spent.
When the SGA began to illegally go into closed session during its public meetings, it prevented The Montclarion from reporting to the campus community how their student fees were being spent. We sought the aid of legal representation with the funds that had been allotted to us in the SGA operating budget for the past three years.
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