After what happened earlier this semester at Grambling State
with the challenges its student newspaper faced, it looks like we have
another one of our student publications at our HBCUs in a
crisis. Fortunately, The Gramblinite
is back in publication.
The article on The Famuan appears in
today's edition of THE HILLTOP (Howard U's daily). As a
former Hilltop editor, I know this situation with The Famuan
hits close to home. Some of you may have been in attendance at
the HBCU newspaper conference last week at FAMU.
George Daniels
Famuan Says "No Pay, No Paper"
Posted: 2/20/07
As reported by Sidney Wright, IV for Black College Wire
in today’s issue of The Hilltop,
several members of The Famuan newspaper
have gone on strike due to failure to receive paychecks from the
University. Seventeen members of the newspaper’s staff, along with many
adjunct professors and other student employees, have not been paid by Florida
A&M University this semester.
Castell Brant, the university’s interim
president, said the students will be paid this week and that there is no clear
or distinct reason for the hold up.
This state university should be held
accountable for the inability to pay so many employees in a timely fashion. It
is wrong that they are not paying these students and blaming it on an error in
budgeting.
The frequent question that The Hilltop editorial board members asked was,
“How can something like this happen at a university that has been in existence
for so long and has state backing financially?”
The answers have to be
stronger than a budgeting error that was overseen during the last
administration. It is unreal to believe that a state funded university could
incur that much financial ruin to the point where a budgeting error would not
allow them to pay a significant number of people.
But it is real that
The Famuan’s Editor-In-Chief Alaythia C.
Burkins had the lights in her home turned off for inability to pay her bills. At
an editorial roundtable at the HBCU Newspaper Conference, The Famuan Business Editor Robbyn Mitchell
said that some of the staff members could not pay their rent, and several have
received eviction notices.
The
Hilltop staff members have encountered problems receiving payment from
the University when first getting on staff, but that is not due to accounting
issues.
We support The Famuan in
their effort to ensure they get paid, but hope they are able to get back work
soon.
If the University fails to pay these students and they remain on
strike, it will only hurt the University at-large.
Although they
will be required to print the advertisements they have already sold at a minimum
in the newspaper, the University’s community will remain uninformed about issues
that effect their lives.