Well, without needing to know anything about the speaker or her opinions, one thing springs to my mind. You're talking about a *university* newspaper. It gave front-page coverage to the most recent speaker in a lecture series at the university, and minor coverage elsewhere in the paper of a non-university-related, general event which had already received widespread coverage in the mainstream media and will probably continue to do so. As far as I can see, they have their priorities exactly right.

How close to the tornado area is your university? If the tornado damage happened in the same town and/or affected a large number of students directly, then I'd say it would warrant major coverage in the first two or three pages of the paper. Again, though, coverage of university events is surely the primary focus of a university newspaper.