Letter to the editor: Setting record straight on Seton Hill newspaper

Here’s my letter responding to an recent article about the future of the student newspaper I advised for over two decades.

A pause.

The Seton Hill University student paper is on what my English department colleagues described in a recent email as “indefinite hiatus.” At the time, we didn’t know for how long.

I was surprised by the creatively phrased Trib headline “Seton Hill University shutters student newspaper indefinitely” (Jan. 27, TribLive). (Headline writer, for even more clicks try working in “leaked email”!)

The article repeats hearsay that does not correspond to my experiences during 21 years as adviser. Maybe four or five times, a provost requested a little chat, but always mediated professionally, listening as the students and I discussed pre-publication review, newspaper theft and even (dramatic pause) defamation. Sometimes when an editor asked for a routine revision, the writer would side-eye me and grumble about censorship. But the provost was never the villain.

As I committed about a third of my time to journalism, two or three committed students — or sometimes just one — struggled to produce even one issue in recent semesters. Burnt out, I stepped down as adviser.

Just a few weeks after learning the English faculty could not supply a replacement, the university announced a plan to find a new adviser, ending the hiatus by fall 2025.

Good news, indeed.

Dennis G. Jerz

Greensburg

The writer is an associate professor of English at Seton Hill University

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