Rena Clark says she is slowly being won over. Reporters now call her up to a week before their deadlines to run stories by her or request an interview.
"They're demonstrating great integrity in how they handle their relationship with the school," Clark says.
The administration seems to be reciprocating. During fall registration, the Harbus was given a special station at which to hand out its papers to incoming students.
Despite the new detente, the Harbus, a non-profit corporation, covers the news fiercely and is not reluctant to assert its editorial independence.
That contrasts markedly with the newspaper at the top-ranked Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. The editor-in-chief there acknowledged last month that he had received $1500 in secret "stipends" from his school's administration.
When Harbus ran that story, they attached the following editor's note: "The editorial and writing staff of the Harbus News do not, and have never, received compensation of any kind."
"There's always that tug of war between the press and the establishment," Khlat says. "It's a partnership, but you're always going to get that tension. But now, even if they don't like what we write, they still respect us."
The Business School and its student newspaper try to get along.