web_tb_venlotiga_summer

Permission To ‘Imagine More’ Required

by Published: Jun 22, 2012

“Truth, Fairness and Accuracy” is part of the slo­gan the Torch depends on to serve our read­ers the news and infor­ma­tion of the Ferris community.

We under­stand that being a part of the media world we will have read­ers from time-to-time that dis­agree with infor­ma­tion, opin­ions, comics and other cov­er­age. The Torch strives to inform and pro­vide a voice to and for the Ferris community.

The First Amendment pro­tects our free­dom of speech and that of those who may dis­agree with us or our con­tent. This sum­mer, we ran a sum­mer edi­tion that was released May 16 and the con­tent cre­ated quite a stir among some par­ties. It’s great to hear peo­ple talk­ing about the paper, it’s sad when that con­ver­sa­tion is sti­fled for oth­ers. Our lat­est edi­tion, that is avail­able all sum­mer long, is typ­i­cally included in the ori­en­ta­tion pack­ets of new Ferris stu­dents but that was not the case for this incom­ing class of Bulldogs.

This was a deci­sion made by the Office of Student Life, which over­sees ori­en­ta­tion stat­ing our con­tent was “neg­a­tive, harsh, dis­re­spect­ful” against Ferris stu­dents and the University. Nowhere in the edi­tion do my staff mem­bers or I see such, all I see is truth about stu­dents’ expe­ri­ences and their opin­ions, and cer­tainly noth­ing that would be out-of-line in other news­pa­pers across the coun­try, col­lege or not.

The let­ter from the Orientation office stated we had sev­eral inap­pro­pri­ate top­ics and per­son­ally biased arti­cles. Some includ­ing alco­hol and par­ty­ing, were included, both of which were how to deal with a poten­tially neg­a­tive sit­u­a­tion if caught in one. Nowhere in the Torch were alco­hol abuse or ille­gal activ­ity pro­moted or dis­played. But our read­ers are adults and can han­dle read­ing such con­tent. It’s not impos­si­ble that a large num­ber of stu­dents will be involved with a drink­ing sce­nario or run into the police, sober or not. This infor­ma­tion shouldn’t be hid­den from the eyes of new stu­dents because hav­ing fun while attend­ing col­lege may include alco­hol. This is not a dirty, lit­tle secret. The rest of the con­tent in ques­tion, though true, poked fun at com­plaints that we have had or heard around cam­pus. Who doesn’t know some­one with­out a park­ing ticket?

I sup­port the work of our Torch staff in select­ing, writ­ing, shar­ing their expe­ri­ences sto­ries and infor­ma­tion. Though extremely dis­ap­pointed in the University’s han­dling of the sit­u­a­tion, remov­ing access to infor­ma­tion, I respect their free­dom to have an opin­ion regard­ing the Torch’s content.

The con­tent in the Torch does not mean in any way that we dis­like Ferris. We are here and we will be proud alumni. We work, learn grow and ‘Imagine More’ together, as a com­mu­nity. And, a com­mu­nity has the right to a press free from removal as a result of disagreement.

I am con­fi­dent this won’t be the last time this year that some­one has an opin­ion that is not the same as one printed in the Torch. As such, I am per­son­ally invit­ing you to tell us about it, write a let­ter to the edi­tor, com­ment on our web­site and talk about it with your fel­low Bulldogs. But don’t take the news­pa­per, and the right to read it, out of some­one else’s hands.

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  • John Vestevich

    Another exam­ple of arbi­trary deci­sions made by those who are totally dis­con­nected from the stu­dents and real­ity, entrenched in the mind-numbing labyrinth of the university’s var­i­ous offices, where most staff and admin­is­tra­tors spend more time talk­ing behind each other’s backs and entrench­ing them­selves in their per­sonal bias than actu­ally accom­plish­ing any­thing. The stu­dents are going to see the paper once the fall semes­ter begins. Some of them might even see alco­hol in per­son! Why doesn’t the office of stu­dent life just flat-out tell the new stu­dents not to come here? 

  • Peter Dykhuis

    Nicely put.  I con­grat­u­late you on con­struc­tively and bravely address­ing the crit­i­cism and chal­lenges you are facing.

  • Charly

    What arti­cle were they upset about?

    • Jax Anger

      Pick up a copy, read it, and if you find it let us know. :)

      • alumni

        it’s the car­toon silly

  • Jax Anger

    Every morn­ing this week that there has been ori­en­ta­tion, I’ve woke at the crack of dawn and handed out papers to incom­ing Freshmen and their par­ents. It’s been a very reward­ing expe­ri­ence. As I hand out papers I see the future stu­dents read­ing them, and their par­ents read­ing them, and appre­ci­at­ing them. In the past, the paper was tucked away in a folder, inside the ori­en­ta­tion pack­ets. By bring­ing the paper directly to the reader, we’ve actu­ally increased read­er­ship, and future read­er­ship. Because of their actions, they’ve actu­ally made the sit­u­a­tion much more favor­able for us. We’ve handed out more news papers than their are news stu­dents each day. This means that not only are the stu­dents tak­ing the papers, but their par­ents are too. 

    By act­ing out of spite and mal­ice, they have given us a power far greater than we antic­i­pated. At the rate we’re hand­ing out papers, we’ll eas­ily blow through the 3,000 issues we bud­get for ori­en­ta­tion pack­ets each year in no time. I guess, in ret­ro­spect I should thank them. Not only am I now get­ting extra hours this sum­mer, but I’m hav­ing a won­der­ful time meet­ing my new class­mates, their par­ents and fam­i­lies, and inform­ing them about the “finer” aspects of Ferris that they won’t find in an ori­en­ta­tion presentation. 

  • TPCjake

    Imagine more cen­sor­ship? Imagine more tuition hikes? Imagine more B.S.?
    You see, I’m already quite good at imag­in­ing; I started doing it at a very young age, in fact.  It’s a shame the University feels so strongly that the real­is­tic per­spec­tives pre­sented in The Torch could neg­a­tively affect their enroll­ment rates. It tells us a bit about their motives. Imagine more repression. 

  • Anonymous

    I may be mis­taken, but did I see that oh-so-controversial comic reprinted in this issue? I’m a huge fan, but really, what were you expect­ing by reprint­ing it? That the University would be nos­tal­gic about all of the con­tro­versy and anger and threats they had to deal with, and want to re-live it with every new stu­dent they welcome?

    I respect the office’s deci­sion to not include the news­pa­per, and I am excited to hear that the papers are being dis­persed by stu­dents instead. This seems like a more appro­pri­ate chan­nel of dis­tri­b­u­tion– it makes it more clear that these are student’s opin­ions and work, that stu­dents still have a voice, but that they do not directly reflect the opin­ions and val­ues of the offices of Ferris State University. 

    • Jax Anger

      I’m glad you sup­port stu­dent dis­per­sion! The car­toon in ques­tion was reprinted due to its mas­sive response both com­mu­nally and world-wide. When that cer­tain car­toon “dropped” The Torch hit an all time record-high of 50,000 hits in one day! We could not refuse such an out burst of sup­port! To bol­ster our read­er­ship num­bers we put the “con­tro­ver­sial” soror­ity girl to print once again. During my tenure  as a ‘paper girl’ this car­toon has been enjoyed by all incom­ing fresh­men and their par­ents, as I can freely watch them read the car­toon and react. I fee priv­i­leged to such expe­ri­ence, and thank all those that help me to make it pos­si­ble by HANDING out papers on ori­en­ta­tion days. Thank you, 

      –Jax Anger

  • Guest

    I may be mis­taken, but did I see that oh-so-controversial comic reprinted in this issue? I’m a huge fan, but really, what were you expect­ing by reprint­ing it? That the University would be nos­tal­gic about all of the con­tro­versy and anger and threats they had to deal with, and want to re-live it with every new stu­dent they welcome?

    I respect the office’s deci­sion to not include the news­pa­per, and I am excited to hear that the papers are being dis­persed by stu­dents instead. This seems like a more appro­pri­ate chan­nel of dis­tri­b­u­tion– it makes it more clear that these are student’s opin­ions and work, that stu­dents still have a voice, but that they do not directly reflect the opin­ions and val­ues of the offices of Ferris State University. 

  • D. Hodson

    As a for­mer grad­u­ate and alumni of Ferris State I appre­ci­ate your defense of the TORCH and the free­dom of speech rights that it enjoys.  College how­ever is ulti­mately about learn­ing and I think the fact that the paper was rejected for the hand­out packet was a learn­ing expe­ri­ence.  There are many an orga­ni­za­tion, work­place, local, state, and fed­eral agen­cies wait­ing for you in the “after col­lege life” that will try to manip­u­late, mis­di­rect, and out­right over power you.  When that hap­pens what you per­son­ally do next really deter­mines if you have the free­doms you think you do.