The undergraduate student union at the University of Waterloo is receiving criticism from the school’s largest student newspaper over plans to evict the newspaper from its current office.
The Imprint’s office has been at its current location in Waterloo’s Student Learning Centre (SLC), the university’s primary student building, for more than 30 years. They rent the space directly from the Federation of Students (Feds).
The Imprint’s executive editor, Alliya Kanani, said she feels the eviction could be politically motivated, partially resulting from negative news coverage on the student union.
“It is our impression that personal feelings could have been involved,” she said. “We had a couple of stories towards the end of last term where Feds didn’t hide their negative feelings about them.”
One story in particular, published in late February 2015, was about a fee increase proposal at a confidential Feds board meeting. Kanani said the Imprint was told to take the story down.
That same term, members of the student union publicly denounced the newspaper and highlighted the negative relationship between the two groups, Kanani said.
Carly McCready, Feds’ vice president of operations and finance, said the plan to evict the paper is purely a financial problem.
“They feel that it’s because of bad coverage but that’s not true, and I have expressed that to them multiple times,” she said. “They know the reason is because it was costing us money.”
McCready said Imprint’s lease was costing Feds thousands of dollars a year, and the lease had to be terminated in order to negotiate a new one.
The Imprint’s lease was terminated in May, and they were asked by Feds to relocate to a basement office. The publication has until Oct. 31 of 2015 to find a new home.
“For us to get a lease termination letter a couple weeks after [the denunciation] . . . Many of us feel as though motives behind the termination weren’t completely business-related,” Kanani said.
The university released a statement saying it has “offered to support the dialogue between Imprint and the Feds as they work to find a solution.”
The new space is roughly two-thirds the size of the newspaper’s current 1,800 square foot headquarters. Kanani said the space is not adequate for the needs of the publication.
“Our impression is that it is far too small to conduct business as we would right now, let alone try to grow in the future,” she said.
Kanani said the paper needs room for two full-time staff members, six to eight part-time staff members, and around 30 volunteers.
She said they also need room to store photo equipment, archives, and sofas to accommodate people staying late at night.
“Just for safety purposes, we’ve got volunteers who don’t necessarily live 30 seconds away,” Kanani said. “Some of them live in Cambridge, and once the busses stop it’s not really safe for them to venture out.”
Imprint is funded by a $4.30 student fee plus advertising revenue. Kanani said her publication was willing to pay an increased rent to keep up with the cost to Feds, but now they have been offered a new space in the basement of the SLC.
McCready maintains that the smaller space is more visible and accessible.
“It was never indicated to us that they needed to stay in their current space,” she said. “When we asked them, their needs were mostly for a visible and accessible space in the SLC and it was the feeling of our board that that would be a suitable space, and it still is. We’re still working with them to see how we can make that space feasible for them.”
