Dear President Bennet,
I write to ask you to support WESU Middletown as an autonomous, student-run, community supported, free-form radio station and to abandon your plans to turn the station into just another NPR affiliate.
As I am sure you aware, the lack of professionalism (as your public relations representative Justin Harmon phrased it) at the station is primarily due to the disastrous and forced move of the radio station off campus in the spring of 2001. Some three years later, the University has still not provided the radio station with adequate soundproofing, floor space or record shelves to replace the facilities lost in the move. For a considerable amount of time, the station operated without a Pro Studio, which is used to train prospective DJs.
Rather than address these simple issues, which would require a modest financial commitment from Wesleyan University, your solution is to take over the programming of WESU and incorporate NPR broadcasting. Never mind the fact that central Connecticut is already well served with some 12 different NPR affiliates in the immediate area.
In the Nov. 7 issue of The New York Times you are quoted that a broadcast stream from NPR affiliate WSHU would provide “a richer offering with a larger audience.” Perhaps you are unaware that WESU’s reach already blankets a healthy portion of southern New England from New Haven, Connecticut to Providence, Rhode Island. The station commands a “4” ranking in the College Music Journal, making the radio station one of the more influential independent stations in the Northeast and a sought-after broadcast for new bands.
However, it isn’t surprising that you may be misinformed about the radio station. When I was a member of the WESU board we invited you to tour our new space but you declined, sending Dean of Students Mike Whaley instead.
While I was a member of the board we worked tirelessly to get WESU incorporated so that we could fundraise and renew our license under the auspices of the Wesleyan Broadcast Association. The University-appointed legal counsel was both non-responsive and evasive in our requests to set up meetings and move forward towards financial autonomy. Instead of working to re-incorporate the license under the WBA, your solution was to have Wesleyan lawyers convince the station to sign its license over to the University, which occurred in 2002 and may be a violation of the WESU constitution.
I think you owe the students of Wesleyan and the community of central Connecticut a reason for your sudden concern in the financial status of WESU. The radio station does not, as has been implicitly suggested in Wesleyan press releases and interviews with local and national newspapers, receive funding from Wesleyan University. Instead, the station receives its funding from the student body activity tax, which is allocated by the Student Judicial Board, a subcommittee of the Wesleyan Student Assembly.
When Wesleyan inherited the WESU license your administration also inherited a moral obligation to meet the needs of the student body and the community at large. At present, it appears that you are ignoring that obligation in pursuit of cost-efficiency, which has neither a financial effect on Wesleyan University nor does it address the needs of Wesleyan’s students.
I would like to remind you that WESU is in great company with other college affiliated, autonomous, free-form stations around the country, like Tufts University’s WMFO-FM, Georgia Tech’s WREK-FM, UC Davis’ KDVS-FM, UC Berkeley’s KALX-FM and the University of Michigan’s WCBN-FM. WESU is proud to be a member of this unique family and I hope it will continue to be in the long future.
There are many things that can be done to improve WESU and bring fundraising to the station (re-incorporation of the Wesleyan Broadcast Association would be a great start). But removing autonomous control over the station’s own programming decisions is not one of them.
Producing a show through four years at Wesleyan is perhaps my fondest memory of my time there. While moving up from the dreaded 4 a.m.- 6 a.m. time-slot as a freshman to the primetime of 10 p.m.- 12 p.m. as a senior, I learned the merits of diligence, hard work, professionalism and diversity of programming. Many other alumni like myself have gone off to careers in broadcasting. I do not understand how removing programming control from the students and community volunteers of WESU will instill in them the same values I learned while there.
Sincerely,
Matthew Smith ’02
WESU Disc Jockey 1998-2002
Personnel Director 2000-1
Music Director 2001-2
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