No Students Needed

Boston has a reputation of intolerance and insularity. "No Irish need apply", the busing violence of the 1970's, the nonsense Bill Russel had to endure, Tim Thomas' racist remarks about Joel Ward...

But a state university excluding students from participating in licensed operation? Ridiculous.

Last night from 10pm until midnight "Boston's NPR music station" WUMB ran on "autopilot", as if it were an ipod on shuffle mode, the music broken by pre-recorded station identifications and infomercials. No human presence was there. WUMB's schedule indicates a two hour period Mondays through Thursdays that had been personed by students who had completed the Albert O school of radio broadcasting training in October, 2011.

With those four students, then General Manager made a feeble attempt to break the no-students-on-air barrier by authorizing the four, allowing very limited air time and keeping them on a very tight leash, absolutely controlling the content they played and the words they spoke.

Having no "on-air personality" last night goes a long was to reinforce the public's impression that WUMB wishes to continue to be known as an insular institution run of, by and for highly paid management on the state dole who have no plan to give up their nest egg and turn over operations to UMass Boston students and the Columbia Point community.

With sister stations WMUA (UMass Amherst), WUML (UMass Lowell) and WUMD (UMass Dartmouth) chartered as recognized student organizations staffed with very limited paid advisors and run by student and community volunteers, why does the Commonwealth and UMass Boston continue to pour funds into WUMB management salaries and allow it to be run as a student-free zone?