Editorial: Is The Vista going away?

On Jan. 23 I received an email from Lisa Kern, manager of finance and operations for the University of Central Oklahoma’s Academic Affairs.

“The Provost was under the impression that The Vista was going online for the Spring so print wasn’t going to be done,” read the email from Kern.

This was in the midst of the beginning of the spring semester, when The Vista was establishing its print schedule for the upcoming months.

Having seen the email, I took the information to Mike Breslin, chair of the Mass Communication department. Breslin informed me that conversations had been happening about moving The Vista to a hybrid model in the fall semester of 2025. One monthly print, with online editions prepared as fit. Five days after I approached Breslin, he sent an email to all Mass Communication faculty and staff informing them of the conversations.

Many protested.

The Board

Due to these events, a board was formed to oversee the student media at UCO. This board has historically existed, but had not been in use for many years.

The UCO Student Media Advisory Board has had several closed-door meetings this semester, but after questioning from The Vista staff, the board agreed those meetings were possibly violations of the Open Meetings Act. Therefore, any further meetings were publicly available.

The first public meeting was held on April 16.

Present on the board is Joe Hight, the board’s interim chair, as well as, Mark Hanebutt, Sherri Ward, Chad Perry, David Nelson, UCentral advisor Mark Scott and The Vista’s advisor Erika Williams.

The Meeting

On the agenda was a budget report and discussion for student media (The Vista and UCentral, the student broadcast) for the 2025-2026 academic year.

Several Professional Media students were present at the meeting after being alerted to the meeting via the UCentral GroupMe by Amber Phillips, admin specialist in the MCOM department.

No members of The Vista were informed to be there, only UCentral members were encouraged by Phillips.

I was present in the meeting, as the only representative for The Vista.

In the meeting, members established that $56,000 was available for all student media, instead of the previous $56,000 for The Vista and $18,000 for UCentral, which had historically been higher before cuts made across the board at the university level.

According to the meeting, UCentral is asking The Vista to subsidize that missing $18,000, with both the advisor for The Vista, Erika Williams, and the advisor for UCentral, Mark Scott, on board with this plan. This would be done by removing the print publication of The Vista and moving it online. Therein lies the issue, the online publication for The Vista is nonexistent. All branding for the current website, including the name, is tied to UCentral; ucentralmedia.com.

Therefore, eliminating the print publication of The Vista, folds it into the UCentral product unless a new website were to be created. A discussion the board has not yet had, according to the board’s chair, Joe Hight.

Another problem also lies with the solution to kill the print publication in order to provide funds to UCentral Media. The funds would not be enough.

At an estimated cost, $12,000 is what it takes to print The Vista across the span of an academic year. UCentral is seeking $18,000.

According to documents provided to the board from Scott in the meeting, UCentral estimates that it would cost $28,044 to operate during the academic year. The reason this exceeds the originally requested $18,000 is because it adds additional hours for a show’s producer and two digital producers to run the broadcast’s social media.

The Vista’s new proposed budget does not include a print publication, nor does it include a new website, branding or marketing, as said by Hight, those discussions have not been had yet amongst the board.

The budget proposes an editor-in-chief, a digital editor, a sports editor and a photo editor, as well as two reporters and two photographers. The Vista currently has six editors, six reporters, several contributing writers and three photographers.

The budget proposed by Williams at the meeting includes $500 for special projects and $1,000 for equipment. It totals at $31,440. That means the budget proposed by Scott and Williams comes to $59,484. Still exceeding the $56,000 offered, but with bare-bones operations and a stripped Vista staff, plus no printing.

“You can look at these numbers and you’ll see that the numbers that were presented to us at the last board meeting do not match up with that money that we have been allocated from the university,” said Hight.

Solutions Presented

Manager of Media Operations Bradley Keim suggested that the student media request more funding from UCO Provost Charlotte Simmons’ office. It is unclear if any members of the board, or greater MCOM community have made the request.

Hight’s solution would include an event on Thursday designed to celebrate a former advisor of The Vista, Dennie Hall, while also discussing the impacts and importance of The Vista across the UCO campus. This event is a reception and program that would benefit the Dennie Hall Endowment Fund, which provides funding for operations to The Vista. Should the finances of The Vista and UCentral be merged, those funds could also be used for the broadcast.

“This is an event planned around how important a student organization has been to this campus for a long period of time,” said Hight. Hight is a UCO alumni and former editor to The Vista.

Hight equated The Vista to being a similar staple of the UCO community that Old North is.

“You can look at this university and you can look at the institutions of this university and you can see Old North and then you see The Vista,” said Hight. “They stand next to each other.”

Hight said The Vista deserves the same recognition as an important institution on the UCO campus.

History

The Vista has been a print publication on the UCO campus since 1903. It has 122 years of history, and serves as not only the campus newspaper, but a historical document preserved in the UCO library showing the history of the university.

The paper’s mission is to preserve the voice of the UCO student, and in-turn serve as the voice for the UCO community. “Our words, your voice,” is a motto each reporter follows at the institution.

The UCentral broadcast has existed since 1976. The broadcast also seeks to serve the UCO community.

Documents in the Chambers Library detail the history of both organizations.

The Next Meeting

No decision has been made regarding the future of either institution.

The next meeting of the UCO Student Media Advisory Board will be held on April 28, at 3:30 p.m. details will be posted on the announcement board on the second floor of the MCOM building.