Some advice from another college radio station that experience the same thing-and won

[Kelly McNoldy]

Hi Everyone,

I'm a new community DJ at WRVU but I'm not new to college radio.  A few years ago the college radio station I worked for, WPRK 91.5FM in Winter Park, FL, of Rollins College, went through a similar ordeal that WRVU is going through now and they WON.  I wrote to Dan Seeger, who has worked in college radio his entire life and was GM of the station at the time of the ordeal.  I asked him how WPRK was able to convince Rollins that it was worth keeping even though it had low student interest (and this is at a college with only 1,700 undergrads).  Here's what he said:

"There were a few things that were done, first and foremost the students mobilized as a united front and expressed the value of the radio station to them. They did it in a variety of ways: town hall type meetings, letters to the president and trustees, petition drives, setting up tables at the campus center to recruit other students to their cause. They took a greater interest in the rest of the college, including the broadcast of basketball games. They reinvested the station in the college community in an effort to get the college community to reinvest in them. In the process, they also reached out to writers at Orlando Weekly and the Orlando Sentinel (at the time, they had a regular radio column, so it was easy to find someone interested in writing about the situation) to add some public pressure to the cause. The whole time, the tone was respectful but forceful.

When I came in, the major effort I put in on that front was to convince campus administrators that the central value of the radio station was not teaching students how to be broadcasters, but how to be leaders. I talked a lot about the critical thinking and decision making skills that were being built for the students who participated in the station, especially those who took on specific staff roles. It was hands-on, experiential learning that was easily transferable to other jobs, other positions. One of the things that kills off campus radio stations is the perception that their primary value is serving as tech training for a professional field that's less and less vital out in "the real world."

In my view, one of the most important things is changing that perception held by the decision-makers. If they think that the campus radio station is there to train future DJs, they're going to want to shut it down. If they can see it as a learning laboratory for leadership--which, at its best, it absolutely is--then they're more likely to commit to it, even start to celebrate it as a revolutionary part of the learning process.

(One other thing worth looking into is how integral the radio station is in the research being done for the school's accreditation process. Schools nationwide are getting freaked out about that as the scrutiny has increased on the value of their programs. The radio station should actually be one of the easiest places to demonstrate how it's constantly working towards viable, relatively concrete learning outcomes. If the station's advisor gets the station built into the fabric of that process, the school may be less likely to shut it down.)"

I just wanted everyone to know that this has happened before and it's been beaten, so keep your hopes up and keep on working towards saving WRVU!

Also, if you want to check out WPRK, go to www.wprkdj.org and listen online.  The two stations are pretty identical and WPRK is still going strong today.

Thanks!
Kelly McNoldy

kelly....@gmail.com