Spring Break
Not just Crooker: UST just plain stinks
Issue date: 5/1/08 Section: Opinion
After more than 20 years, the Cauldron is signing off as an independent, student-run publication, leaving UST without its watchdog of a student paper.
After all we have seen this year, the Caudron staff could not publish a final issue without a few words of warning to the student body and the University community as a whole. It seems more apparent every day that the University of St. Thomas is not the thriving liberal arts college it once was. Something smells here on campus, and it is not just Crooker Center.
First on the list of recent University follies is the administration's decision to forge on with the extremely controversial publications committee. The board met last month, without a new Cauldron adviser, and began setting up procedures for censoring the publications it oversees, just as we have said all along it would.
Of course, this censorship will come in the form of punishment after the fact rather than prior review, but, indeed, the student newspaper will no longer enjoy the basic American freedom previously guaranteed: that is, freedom of speech. Student writers and editors who fear retaliation for what they publish will simply refrain from covering topics that could be considered even marginally controversial.
But UST's current administration is not satisfied to censor just the paper. Now, in accordance with the new non-political speaker policy, the University will also control what guest lecturers say in their presentations on campus. According to Vice President for Academic Affairs John Hittinger, the policy set up procedures to deal with "issues" such as the cancelled speech by pro-choice civil rights pioneer Dolores Huerta.
Basically, speakers who come to UST should only make statements if they are in accordance with the University's core values. Perhaps next a committee should be formed to determine exactly what those are and if they, in fact, are simply identical to conservative Catholic doctrine.
After all we have seen this year, the Caudron staff could not publish a final issue without a few words of warning to the student body and the University community as a whole. It seems more apparent every day that the University of St. Thomas is not the thriving liberal arts college it once was. Something smells here on campus, and it is not just Crooker Center.
First on the list of recent University follies is the administration's decision to forge on with the extremely controversial publications committee. The board met last month, without a new Cauldron adviser, and began setting up procedures for censoring the publications it oversees, just as we have said all along it would.
Of course, this censorship will come in the form of punishment after the fact rather than prior review, but, indeed, the student newspaper will no longer enjoy the basic American freedom previously guaranteed: that is, freedom of speech. Student writers and editors who fear retaliation for what they publish will simply refrain from covering topics that could be considered even marginally controversial.
But UST's current administration is not satisfied to censor just the paper. Now, in accordance with the new non-political speaker policy, the University will also control what guest lecturers say in their presentations on campus. According to Vice President for Academic Affairs John Hittinger, the policy set up procedures to deal with "issues" such as the cancelled speech by pro-choice civil rights pioneer Dolores Huerta.
Basically, speakers who come to UST should only make statements if they are in accordance with the University's core values. Perhaps next a committee should be formed to determine exactly what those are and if they, in fact, are simply identical to conservative Catholic doctrine.