Many people think it, but until now, no one has said it. The Marquette Tribune has failed in its responsibility to be a "voice for the students" as it claims. Over the past three years, I have watched the quality of Marquette's student newspaper decline. It came to a head this year. The editorial page has been the site of most of the Tribune's failure to serve the student body it claims to represent.

The editorial page has suppressed student voices to an increasing degree over the past year. My observation of this phenomenon started last December, when I served on Students for Warriors (SFW). In advance of a decision, the SFW executive board hoped to write a Viewpoint for the Tribune to take our case for a nickname change to the student body. We were told by Tribune staff that, "No Viewpoints regarding the nickname will be printed" in advance of the board of trustees meeting last December. I wish this was an isolated incident, but it is obvious this was not.

Over the month of October and into November of 2005, I waited for another Viewpoint I had written at the end of September to be printed. It never was. Friends have told me they have waited for months before Viewpoints are printed…if they are at all. I was willing to give the Tribune the benefit of the doubt, assuming that there were simply too many Viewpoints to fit into the admittedly reduced editorial space of the Tribune, and that my Viewpoint would be printed in the order it was received. However, the Nov. 3, 2005 edition of the Tribune had a blank campus viewpoints page, so that couldn't have been it. Where are our Viewpoints?!?! How can there be enough room for Viewpoints by faculty and alumni in a STUDENT newspaper, for an unfunny cartoon about a talking fish, and for two reviews of "Elizabethtown" but not enough room for the student body the Tribune supposes to serve?

I guess there is no longer enough room on the editorial page since the Tribune now publishes staff editorials regularly, never mind the fact that some of the Tribune's editorial board members also have their own regular columns. Never mind the fact that Viewpoints such as mine and my friend's have been excluded in favor of Viewpoints informing us of the urgent concern of one reader that Death Cab for Cutie is "selling out," or people's takes on socializing at the Rec Center.

There is still a chance to save this paper, but drastic steps must be taken with the editorial board or the paper will risk becoming a complete joke.

First, I propose that faculty, alumni and people outside the Marquette community should not be allowed to have Viewpoints published unless the faculty member or alum is referenced by name in a previous Viewpoint, in which case they should be allowed to defend themselves. This is, after all, a student newspaper.

Second, the Tribune should return some Viewpoint space to the student body at large, even if this means reducing the number of staff editorials. This paper can be a relevant voice for the student body, but it has to be the voice of the STUDENTS, not the alumni, faculty or editorial board.

Sever is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences.