This letter is in response to Stefanie Alaimo's Feb. 19 column regarding the February 2000 arrest of The Spectrum's top editors for remaining in the Student Union after midnight. Back then, I was editor in chief of UB's Generation magazine, and as such, I was quite involved in the events depicted. I believe Stefanie left out certain essential pieces of the story.
First of all, The Spectrum - under the direction of Beena Ahmad during the 1999 to 2000 school year - was by far the hardest hitting it has ever been in my time at UB. Ahmad and her staff were great investigative reporters, and their work (sometimes in conjunction, other times in competition, with us over at Generation) exposed a great deal of corruption and questionable fiscal policy on the part of UB administrators, including such things as an ever-ballooning athletics budget at a time when UB had issued both a hiring freeze for faculty and a book-buying freeze for libraries, as well as raises in the Mandatory Comprehensive Fee, under questionable circumstances.
Because of the work of The Spectrum's editors, there was a level of buzz at this university that year which has not been matched since. The buzz, in turn, led to both an extremely large and loud protest during a visit by Gov. George E. Pataki, and the faculty's vote of "no confidence" in the performance of President William R. Greiner.
Many people felt that the arrest of The Spectrum editors was a direct response by the university administration to the dangerously high quality of the reporters' work. The policy about arresting trespassers in the Student Union after closing had been on the books for years, but had only begun to be enforced as The Spectrum became more hard-hitting.
After the arrest of The Spectrum's editors, Ahmad organized a sit-in. As The Spectrum's staff worked diligently until around 1:30 in the morning, they were joined by prominent UB faculty, Generation staff and former Student Association officers. All of us were willing to - and, in fact, expected to be - arrested for our protest. Channel 4 News was on hand to film it. But the university decided that beating us into submission was not worth the bad press in the local community, and the next day New York State Assemblyman Sam Hoyt brokered a deal with (Vice President of Student Affairs) Dennis Black to allow The Spectrum staff to stay past midnight. It was a great victory, and we were all proud to have helped.
Unfortunately, after Ahmad left, the quality of The Spectrum's reporting has sunk so low that it is no longer even worth reading. The current Spectrum staff cower away from exposing important issues of fiscal irresponsibility within the school's administration.
Provost Elizabeth Capaldi has been at UB for nearly three years now and will most likely be the university's next president. But according to the local papers, she was run out of her last job as provost in Florida for manipulating nearly $1 million dollars so that she could have a cozy retirement. This is well documented, but The Spectrum has yet to write a single story about it.
Similarly, as several prominent UB administrators have resigned or been fired over the past two years, many have speculated that this was a result of conflicts with the provost. (The Spectrum has) not explored that angle in any of (its) stories. Nor (has The Spectrum) done an intense examination into the ways UB's budget has been restructured since Capaldi's arrival, though last spring you gave her a grade of "A."
Shortly before that, when Greiner had rejected the idea of bringing former president Bill Clinton as part of the Distinguished Speaker Series because it would be "too controversial" to call Clinton "distinguished," The Spectrum never covered it, saying the story was "not newsworthy." However, The Buffalo News thought it was a worthwhile thing to report to the community and made it a cover story several times. The Associated Press also carried it, and radio stations discussed it around the state.
Most students I talk to who live in the university apartments complain about how shoddy they were built (crumbling walls, closets that don't fit clothes, etc.). Yet, they pay outrageously high rent, which is slated to go up, though the university claims they will make no money and only be able to pay of their mortgage on these apartments for the next 30 years. So, who is making the money on these over-priced apartments then? Somebody must be - the numbers just don't add up.
How come the university's budget is not available online, when the SA made theirs easily available online over three years ago? How many more times will the Faculty Student Association raise prices in order to pay more "rent" to the university? What kind of perks will Greiner get in his retirement? Which university officials have already expressed their desire to leave when Capaldi is promoted?
These are the sorts of things I wonder about and guess that your other readers wonder about, too. But instead, we get cover stories on "the art of dropping an egg" and procedural changes at the SA Assembly.
I wonder: Why does The Spectrum duck the hard issues? Is it because of the level of talent and energy among your current staff, or is it because you fear reprisal from the UB administration in a way that would have shamed your predecessors?
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
