Silver & Gold's Last Record

After serving as CU’s faculty and staff weekly newspaper for almost 40 years, it fell victim to budget cuts. Faced with a $6.2 million shortfall, President Bruce Benson (Geol’64, HonDocSci’04) shut down the paper, which cost $600,000 annually to produce. He said it was a hard decision but noted CU is the only university among its peers that financially supports a newspaper operation.

The paper’s editorial staff tackled controversial issues, published guest editorials, posted job announcements and wrote obits about longtime employees.

Many faculty members and staff opposed the closing of the paper, as did its 15-member editorial board. Former editor Susan Barney Jones (MJour’84) told the Coloradan that “the move to eliminate [the paper] was about the administration not liking the paper’s independent voice more than it was about budget.”

A new online paper, Faculty and Staff Newsletter, has replaced it at www.cusys.edu/newsletter/ with a $100,000 budget from the CU system.