Editorial
Student Voice ashamed, saddened
March 23, 2007
The entire Student Voice staff is disheartened to know that a leading member of the UW-River Falls community would steal large quantities of the paper and keep the information and our hard work from being distributed on campus.
Even worse, valuable student money was literally thrown away due to one person’s selfish acts.
As we prepared to produce the paper on Wednesday night, the story about Student Senate Director Tory Schaaf unfolded. Last week’s edition of the SV reported that Schaaf was cited by the River Falls Police Department for absolute sobriety and prohibited blood alcohol level.
These fines are related to being under 21 years old and driving with any alcohol in the system.
He obviously did not want this information in the hands of the student body, so he stole a large quantity straight from the newsstands.
Last Friday morning, staff members fielded questions about the missing papers from concerned students, faculty and staff, and we were left baffled at their absence.
A lot of work goes into producing the paper each and every week. Stories are assigned and worked on for two weeks prior to printing, and the editorial staff stays in the office working on layout and design into the early morning hours of Thursday.
Not only is our goal to put out a paper, but the individual articles are used by each and every reporter for personal portfolios and to get jobs in the future.
In the end, we are not the people who are hurt the most by Schaaf’s actions, but instead the entire UWRF community has been punished.
News and events have not been relayed from us to the public, and hundreds of dollars allocated to the Student Voice by the Leadership Development and Programming Board has been wasted.
We, as students, fund the student organizations on campus. Leaders and members of student organizations fight to the death in order to have just a little more money added to their accounts.
Now, the money we’ve fought for in order to put out the most thorough paper possible was lost because of his self-centered actions.
Public Safety was notified last Friday of the missing papers, but no action was taken. It was not until Monday morning, when a custodian in North Hall found a stack of over a hundred copies thrown into a recycling bin that the our worst suspicion of theft was confirmed.
It is truly unfortunate that Schaaf felt the need to not only make matters worse for himself, but punish the entire student body.
We work hard at what we do, even if the paper does not get into the hands of each individual at UWRF, we have still put in the effort.
Hopefully next time someone wants to keep something out of the public eye they take a better approach.