KSLU’s predecessor, WCAD, was the first college radio station in the country.  KSLU strives to bring new music to campus through radio and live shows with DJs.

KSLU is a educational non-commercial, non-profit radio station that transmits via internet and is operated solely by students of St. Lawrence University. KSLU exists to provide an educational experience for the students of St. Lawrence University through the operation and management of a radio station. It shall operate in the public interest, convenience, and necessity providing programming of an entertaining, informative and educational nature.

Until 2003, KSLU was run by groups of dedicated and enthusiastic students who, for years, provided St. Lawrence and the surrounding community with a professional radio station. KSLU was originally scheduled to hold a space in the new student center; however, inadequate communication between the organization and building committee at the time did not see this notion through. Also a lack of faculty counsel and support played an important part in KSLU’s steady decline. Thus KSLU was moved from the Nobel Center student union to the basement of Lee, which was inadequate for broadcast, a health hazard and withdrawn from student view and central campus community.

By the spring of 2004, KSLU existed as an organization, but all abilities to transmit over FM frequencies vanished, allowing members to broadcast over the university’s built-in AM frequency and cable system. KSLU continued to be prevalent in the SLU community, hosting and supporting numerous functions with music; unfortunately, a lack of commitment and failure to recruit lead to disbandment of the entire organization. KSLU, one of the most important student organizations that provided an unparallel experience for students, was gone.

At the end of the 2005 spring semester, KSLU was virtually nonexistent. Rumors regarding the radio station and good intentions for its resurrection floated around campus. Regrettably, leadership continued to wane and the equipment in Lee began to collect dust. Without a location to call their own, or faculty advising to help revive, KSLU started to become something of the past.

Beginning in the fall of 2005, a group of underclassmen decided to invest their efforts into reviving the radio station before it was forgotten. Club status was attained, the students acquired access to the Lee basement space and began organizing and cleaning the area. CD sales were held to provide revenue as well as to show the campus community that KSLU was making efforts to return. Slow progress continued into the spring of 2006; by this time, KSLU had established organization status and a budget had been proposed and granted by SLUSAF, additional members infiltrated the original group and a solid base of interest was finally visible. A contingency request, granted by Thelmo, enabled the purchase of the minimal equipment required for a network broadcast.

Over the summer of 2007, important progress was made toward the revitalization of KSLU. Contact with St. Lawrence University administration led to a search for a location resulting in few viable options.

The fall of 2007 semester began with a very strong member base that included a large number of first year students; by mid semester break, the a new location for KSLU had been secured in a spare room of the old health center, now used by the JAVA theme house as an event venue. An impressive bout of new members enabled KSLU to establish network broadcast capabilities thus initiating a rapid revitalization.

With the acquisition of space in the old health center, more focus was able to be placed on finding a suitable means for transmission. At this time KSLU began the lengthy process of evaluating the legality and viability of continuing as a traditional radio station given that it was only capable of broadcasting at a negligible frequency. Additionally the large movement of many college and community media entities to streaming digital formats provided another perspective for KSLU to consider.

In the spring of 2007 KSLU made large strides in finally starting to broadcast via streaming media over the campus network. Through the medium KSLU was able to start reaching out to the campus community. The ability to further broadcast to a global community was possible; however, due to inadequate funding received from the student government and the lack of faculty direction the connection could not yet be made.

Also in 2007 it became increasingly apparent that an overhaul in visioning was coming about for KSLU and that the organization was now beginning to sustain both technological capacity as well as human capacity. A core group of 10 individuals with the expanding support of 40 or more were showing up to key planning meetings and laying the groundwork for a future commissioning process.

KSLU also hopes to expand its business planning and strategic planning in a manner that will provide for organizational memory as KSLU recognizes that as the biggest threat to any campus organization. It is understood that the annual budget that comes along with commissioning will provide for stability in staffing and administration as well as programming.