A student-led petition that collected over 600 signatures during the past two weeks is creating some hope to revive the struggling WUEC campus radio station.

Senior Ryan West, a member of Student Radio Initiative, and about five other students started the petition Nov. 11 after Student Senate’s Finance Commission allocated $20,510 of the $35,000 WUEC requested in student segregated fees for next year.

The petition’s mission statement states that there is a desire for more student involvement in WUEC and that students who fund the station “deserve better representation for their money.”

West called WUEC an “incredible” resource on campus that is being wasted right now.

WUEC (89.7 FM) is one of the UW System Board of Regents’ 13 noncommercial educational broadcast radio stations located on UW campuses. For the past several years the station has had a jazz format and it always has broadcast Wisconsin Public Radio programs.

In February, Senate voted to deny the station student funding due to a late budget proposal. Last year WUEC consisted of one student manager and a faculty director, both of whom are no longer with the university.

Currently, there are five to eight students involved with WUEC but it has no student manager, said Karen Kremer, WUEC adviser and communication and journalism department chair.

As for more students getting involved, she said the station always has been open to them.

“There’s nothing stopping that,” said Kremer, who added that she thinks students imagine an “invisible barrier” that keeps them from becoming involved.

Kremer, who thinks the petition is understandable and admirable, said she would like to see many more students and faculty involved with the station.

“And there’s never been a reason that they can’t,” Kremer said.

The petition is not meant to prove that students didn’t have an opportunity at WUEC, West said. Rather, it is to show the Campus Media Advisory Committee that there is strong student interest in the station, he said.

“(WUEC) just needed to be more open,” said West, who added that half of the people who signed the petition did not know there was a student FM radio station on campus.

West, who is glad Kremer is open to new ideas, said he and others tried a few years ago to get involved with WUEC but its director at the time, never contacted them back. It became like a “constant phone-tag, waiting game,” he said.

“We could’ve been using it and should’ve been using it,” West said of WUEC.

Friday’s Campus Media Advisory meeting will be an official way of presenting the petition, West said, and will create an opportunity to discuss the possibilities of WUEC.

Students can do programs, previously recorded or live, for the station, she said.

“We just need to help find the people to produce it,” Kremer said.

WUEC currently has to decide on its mission statement, format and who will manage the station, Kremer said. The station also needs to write job descriptions for all positions.

Aside from finding more members, WUEC also needs to find more funding, especially if Senate passes the current $20,510 allocation in February.

It would give WUEC a “bare bones” budget that would last only two-thirds of next school year, Kremer said. It would force the station to look for other funding sources to operate at its minimum level.

Finance Commission director Nate Otto said the station received the lower allocation because, although strongly divided, the committee thinks WUEC doesn’t need a paid staff manager now. This is due to WUEC’s low membership and resources, he said. Otto added that the committee wants to fund the station’s recovery and that more communication is needed with WUEC officials to gain a better understanding.

If Senate does not approve the full $35,000 request in February and Kremer is not able to find other ways to fund WUEC, she said she doesn’t know what will happen.

With WUEC’s financial future not certain, West said he would help fight for more student funding depending on what plans are made in upcoming talks about the station.

“I think there’d be dozens and dozens of people happy to ambush Student Senate,” West said.

He expects much support for WUEC because he thinks more student involvement in it is the desire of the campus.

West and Kremer agreed that WUEC could follow the setup of UW-River Falls’ WRFW 88.7 FM station, which gives 13 hours of airtime for students and 11 for WPR. Although, unlike River Falls, WUEC would have a format.

WUEC should not be non-formatted because then it’s hard to develop an audience, Kremer said. The station needs to keep its identity, she said, which means keeping any proposed programming in line with WUEC’s mission statement.

Because it is the university’s station, she said the station needs a consistent image and level of quality. A variety of student/faculty programs can be allowed, Kremer said, as long as it follows the station’s mission and people are responsible.

WUEC currently is on automatic programming but is open to student/faculty airtime from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m., she said. Expanding those hours depends on the level of involvement and when it’s in progress, she said.

Senior Randy Lusk, who signed the petition, said he looks forward to possibly seeing WUEC grow into a more student-run station.

“It sounds like people really want it to happen.”