The faculty is planning to restart a faculty newspaper once again, after the Silver & Gold Record’s funding was cut last year.
The paper’s name will be Silver, Gold and Green, according to Margaret Lecompte, a School of Education professor who is in charge of reorganizing a publication for the faculty after the Silver & Gold Record closed last semester.
Lecompte was a consumer of the Silver & Gold Record and did not work for the paper.
Lecompte said the paper will be online and will incorporate higher education staff statewide.
“We want to adhere to the high standards of quality that the Silver & Gold Record did for the CU system,” Lecompte said. “We are working hard. We want an issue out before the election.”
She also said that the Silver, Gold and Green has been receiving donations from people all over the state.
“People are concerned with the loss of a paper and want to see it revived,” she said. “We are asking people to subscribe. A survey says a large amount of people from CU will subscribe.”
Associate Vice President of University Relations Ken McConnellogue said the university neither planned to revive the paper nor provide funding for it. He also said that an online newsletter replaced the Silver & Gold Record, which scaled down the budget and staff.
“It was a budgetary move,” McConnellogue said. “We cut more than $6 million and that’s where the budget for the Silver & Gold (Record) is for.”
He added that the University of California at Berkeley did the same thing and they did not replace it with an online form.
“As colleges and universities face budget issues this is where we are considering cuts,” McConnellogue said.
He also said that they believe they can provide information to the faculty without putting $650,000 in it.
Danielle Alberti, a 21-year-old senior news-editorial major and CU Independent’s photography managing editor, interned at the Silver & Gold Record last year and said that whether or not the paper lost funding was controversial.
“The administrators said it was money,” Alberti said. “The Silver & Gold Record said it was retribution for freedom of speech. As a journalism student I was disappointed that the administration had such little regard for the First Amendment.”
Jeff Dodge, the former editor-in-chief of the Silver & Gold Record and the current managing editor of the Boulder Weekly, said he did not feel the Silver & Gold Record was closed solely for financial reasons.
“There were incidents that the administration did not like what we printed since we were pretty independent,” Dodge said. “That made us an easy target.”
Lecompte said she agreed with Dodge about the reasons for which the newspaper was shut down.
“I think it had little to do with finances,” Lecompte said. “The administration is spending $100,000, not counting reporters, for its own version.”
Lecompte also said CU presidents have been unhappy with the Silver & Gold Record for the 20 years she has been here.
“Hank Brown wanted to get rid of it,” Lecompte said. “My sources say that Benson completed the process. They were angry that the paper was balanced which is biased in the mind of the president.”
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Sara Fruman at Sara.fruman@colorado.edu.
