Letter to the Editor: Why I Resigned from WRVU
Hugh Schlesinger
Issue date: 1/27/10 Section: Opinion
WRVU Music Directors Hugh Schlesinger and Skye Bacus resigned in protest of VSC's decision to cap the number of community DJs. Here, Schlesinger details the reasons for his resignation.
Last semester's decision to cap the number of community DJs at WRVU (i.e. DJs with no affiliation to Vanderbilt other than WRVU) was a remarkable demonstration of irresponsible and willfully ignorant leadership by the Vanderbilt Student Communications Board, which is VSC's governing body. While the flaws abound in this decision to address the prevalence of Community DJs at the station, it is this failure of management that I find particularly astounding.
No one expects the VSC Board to instinctively act in WRVU's best interest. Members of the board typically have no experience with WRVU and little knowledge about it, as intended by the VSC's organization and demonstrated by the board members in their interactions with WRVU's staff and Executive Staff. Further, the VSC staff who advise them tend to have little concern for student media which is not printed twice a week at high cost and subsequently disposed of after remaining unread for a few days.
That said, members of the VSC Board are expected to recognize their lack of knowledge and experience when making decisions affecting WRVU and both seek out and consider outside sources of information and advice. Sadly, the board made no such efforts when considering the institution of a community DJ cap at WRVU.
While transparency was severely lacking throughout their decision making process, it appears the board's main sources of information were Director of Student Media Chris Carroll, an individual with a history of less than harmonious relations with student radio leadership at both Vanderbilt and other institutions he has worked at, and WRVU General Manager Mikil Taylor, who has claimed that by the time the board came to him they seemed to have already settled on the need for some sort of cap.
Other options to address the issue of community DJ prevalence were not discussed with the radio staff at any point. Furthermore, the very nature of community DJ participation and what, if any, problems it posed at WRVU don't seem to have been understood by the board. Instead they acted based on an imagined idea of how WRVU does and should work and produced a solution equally out of touch with the reality of the station's operation.
Last semester's decision to cap the number of community DJs at WRVU (i.e. DJs with no affiliation to Vanderbilt other than WRVU) was a remarkable demonstration of irresponsible and willfully ignorant leadership by the Vanderbilt Student Communications Board, which is VSC's governing body. While the flaws abound in this decision to address the prevalence of Community DJs at the station, it is this failure of management that I find particularly astounding.
No one expects the VSC Board to instinctively act in WRVU's best interest. Members of the board typically have no experience with WRVU and little knowledge about it, as intended by the VSC's organization and demonstrated by the board members in their interactions with WRVU's staff and Executive Staff. Further, the VSC staff who advise them tend to have little concern for student media which is not printed twice a week at high cost and subsequently disposed of after remaining unread for a few days.
That said, members of the VSC Board are expected to recognize their lack of knowledge and experience when making decisions affecting WRVU and both seek out and consider outside sources of information and advice. Sadly, the board made no such efforts when considering the institution of a community DJ cap at WRVU.
While transparency was severely lacking throughout their decision making process, it appears the board's main sources of information were Director of Student Media Chris Carroll, an individual with a history of less than harmonious relations with student radio leadership at both Vanderbilt and other institutions he has worked at, and WRVU General Manager Mikil Taylor, who has claimed that by the time the board came to him they seemed to have already settled on the need for some sort of cap.
Other options to address the issue of community DJ prevalence were not discussed with the radio staff at any point. Furthermore, the very nature of community DJ participation and what, if any, problems it posed at WRVU don't seem to have been understood by the board. Instead they acted based on an imagined idea of how WRVU does and should work and produced a solution equally out of touch with the reality of the station's operation.
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Hugh Schlesinger
posted 2/05/10 @ 6:40 AM CST
I would like to clarify two points that seem to have gotten muddled or misrepresented in the editing process:
1. This is not the reason that I resigned my position at WRVU. (Continued…)
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