Agreement to return student programming to KTRU on Friday

CONTACT: Terry Shepard,
vice president for public affairs
PHONE: (713) 348-6280
EMAIL: tshepard@rice.edu
OR
CONTACT: Johnny
So, KTRU station manager
PHONE: (713) 533-0876

AGREEMENT TO RETURN
STUDENT PROGRAMMING TO KTRU ON FRIDAY

Student
programming will return to the air on Rice University radio, KTRU-FM (91.7), at
4 p.m. Friday, Dec. 8, after agreement on operating policy was reached by
the student staff of the station, the Student Association (SA) and the
university.

“It is a great relief to
the volunteers at the radio station and to the SA that we will have an official
structure through which students effectively exercise control of programming,”
said Johnny So, KTRU station manager and a Rice senior majoring in economics and
policy studies.

KTRU volunteers
overwhelmingly approved the new structure – by, at last count, a vote of 41-1
among student disk jockeys. An e-mail poll of the 20 student senators stood at
13-0 in favor, with official approval awaiting the next senate meeting in
January. Rice President Malcolm Gillis said that he backs the version he has
seen 100 percent.

The new structure for
deciding policy and programming opens by saying that “KTRU, as a student-run
radio station, is accountable to two bodies: the university as holder of the FCC
license and the student body.”
It calls for the station manager to be elected by the student body and for a new
“KTRU Friendly Committee” to create policy guidelines and field concerns and
programming ideas.

That committee will
consist of nine voting members: the station manager; three undergraduates
appointed by the SA Senate; three faculty members, nominated by the Faculty
Committee on Committees; one alumnus, required to have had KTRU DJ experience,
to be nominated by the president of the Alumni association; and one staff
member. The university president will officially appoint the faculty members,
the alumnus and the staff member. Decisions of the committee require at least
six votes for approval.

The agreement was
reached in five days of negotiations by three student volunteers from KTRU – Ben
Horne, Sarah Pitre and Alexei Angelides – Student Association President Lindsay
Botsford, and Vice President for Student Affairs Zenaido Camacho.

KTRU and members of the
student body are planing a “TG” – short for TGIF – at 4 p.m. Friday at the Ley
Student Center. KTRU volunteers have chosen that event for their return to the
air and plan to open with the Miles Davis recording that was playing when
student programming was suspended Thursday morning (Nov.
30).