Over the last 55 years, students have lost an immense amount of power. In 1963, the Carleton Student Association led the establishment of the student-faculty-administration committee, which in 1970 became the College Council. Theoretically, the College Council is still the system that the school operates on and shares power between administration, students and faculty. As anyone who’s tried to interact with the administration recently is familiar with, however, this is not the case anymore. Just four months after the system was put into place, the Carletonian was already publishing articles on how the new system was a farce. The students’ brazen demands for student governance and student power that emerged during the 60s had finally been codified, only to be ripped away. 

In the three decades after WWII, the student body stopped tolerating admin’s refusal to listen to them. This was possible through the CSA, the Carletonian and students’  general willingness to raise hell. CSA at the time had an illustrious track record. In 1957, they accomplished more than the last five modern CSA administrations combined. The Carletonian regularly published articles on hard-hitting issues that mattered to students and was the site of much of the debate about what role students should have in governance. These accomplishments were only possible because students prioritized involvement in institutions on campus and, in turn, demanded that the institutions serve them. It’s a great irony, however, that the CSA and Carletonian are the only remaining bodies of institutional power for students: one helps run the college, while the other constantly questions the decisions made by the college. 

In the last few weeks, the Carletonian has published two articles about CSA. The first investigated the lack of transparency which has defined many of their recent actions. The second was a short blurb about being defunded. This is the Carletonian holding up its side of the bargain, digging into the CSA’s choices. This gets up to this week, when the CSA voted to cut roughly an 1/8th of the Carletonian’s budget:

I am not a regular contributor to the Carletonian and fell into writing this article by accident. Last Friday, I stumbled into Sayles halfway through my lackadaisical work shift to buy lunch, only to encounter a CSA Senator I’m friendly with. They began complaining to me about how the Carletonian had unfairly written about CSA, quoted people without asking them (with quotes from the minutes of a public meeting) and began to ask why CSA should even fund it. It was clear that this CSA was unhappy with the Carletonian, with one of them not so subtly remarking that the recent Carletonian articles made them not want to fund it at all. 

After Friday, I’d heard enough to be concerned and make one of my tri-annual stop-ins to the Carletonian pitch meetings. It was not a normal meeting. Most everyone there was aggressively pushing to investigate the budget meeting that had just wrapped up, as we’d all heard one way or another about various comments CSA members had made. Yet there was one editor who kept reminding us that, if the Carletonian keeps publishing articles about CSA, that’s just going to make the CSA more likely to defund the Carletonian. They’re probably right. But hearing a Carletonian editor afraid that doing the job the Carletonian is actually supposed to do would lead to its demise made it clear that things cannot continue this way.

This week, I talked to a few CSA senators who have confirmed to me that the complaints I had heard on Friday were representative of how a significant chunk of CSA felt during their Monday meeting. Much of CSA was still opposed to these cuts and only approved them right at the end of the process. But what concerns me is that there were multiple members pushing to significantly defund the Carletonian on the grounds that it wasn’t worth keeping around. 

The current state of affairs is dire. CSA members argue that the Carletonian doesn’t publish anything of worth; when it does, they often take issue with the context or editorialization. These critiques are valid, but they do not necessarily diminish the value of what was published. If these articles were really not important, I don’t think they would need to complain to me about what the Carletonian had published about them. Ultimately, I’m not just concerned about decreased  funding for the Carletonian, but also worried about what recent events signal about what will come in the next few years. We now see students actively advocating for some concessions against the primary institutional voice for students on campus. 

These concerns come after the last two decades, where there has been a continuous decline in the number of students willing to write for student newspapers and engage with the power they have. For those who don’t know, large swaths of the administration read the Carletonian. If you want them to hear your anger, say it here. If you want other students to hear your voice, write an article. If you need to say something, there is no better spot on campus to say it.

The ultimate tragedy is that students are the only ones who will lose when we collectively refuse to engage on campus and make our voices heard. The administration has nearly tripled from187 non-teaching staff in 1978 to 478 non-teaching staff in May 2025, excluding maintenance, facilities, dining services workers and the like. That’s almost one staff member for every four students. This has enabled the disempowerment of the student body, now we’re not necessary. In the face of the overwhelming power of the admin, if students want to have any power, any voice in how the college will be run, then you cannot support the CSA’s decision to begin disempowering the Carletonian. The idea that the Carletonian does not publish anything of merit is laughable and only serves to justify the continued marginalization and defunding of the Carletonian, or at best, pushing it to be digital only. Who would read that? 

The loud and angry student body that we had in the 1960s has been gone for a long time, but as of now, the CSA appears unsure of where it wants to go. They recognize that the CSA and Carletonian both exist to give students control. Few are happy with the decisions admin has made regarding the meal plan, the ever-increasing tuition that seems to have no end date, or even Rotblatt. We’ve slowly given up all our power, and now the CSA is cutting one of the last institutions in which the students have the ultimate say. 

The recent cuts made by the CSA are perhaps excusable, but they come at the end of a long tail of lost student power. The student body needs to take responsibility and resume a campaign to take back authority from the school. If we want a school that serves our interests, we must fight for it. 

Now, I ask the CSA members who believe the Carletonian is useless and advocate behind closed doors to defund it to tell everyone why you believe so. Write an article and explain how it will help the student body rather than to get payback or balance the last line of a budget totaling nearly one million dollars.