Typically a college radio station cannot run smoothly under the management of students alone. Assistance is usually sought with engineering, equipment maintenance, FCC compliance, and several other areas for which a college radio station must be responsible but for which students are seldom qualified. In addition, there is another important area for which alumni and community volunteers should, in my opinion, play a crucial roll: in being examples of expert DJs.

Experienced alumni and community volunteers should provide models of skill and creativity which trainees and more experienced student DJs alike should aspire to. Years of doing just a few hours a week on-air will do wonders for a DJs voice and presentation and musical taste. Without this bedrock of experience, student DJs will be in a perpetual cycle of mediocrity—just when they start to hone their skills, they graduate and are gone—obviously that is not good for a college radio station.

However, a college radio station, particularly its student management, must be very careful not to rely on outside folks too heavily. Above all, a college radio station's student management must always keep the management in the hands of students. To let the management slip into the hands of alumni and community volunteers is to invite a rut and to abdicate responsibility. That unhappy circumstance notwithstanding, one of student management's greatest assets is any alumni and community volunteer experience available, e.g. in dealing with past administrations, sports departments, the FCC, etc.

Thus a happy medium must be sought, preserving student control, but maintaining a high level of skill and experience and training at all times. This is a delicate trade-off. Alumni and community volunteers must not be taken for granted or expected to do too much or they will simply leave (you can hardly afford to pay them, after all) but you must not let a station be over-run by them or you will lose the essence of a college radio station.

As always, treat everyone at the station with the respect they're due and keep the best interests of the station paramount at all times.