Don’t Let Former Members Make You Feel Bad

I’m happy that former executive board and staff members worked so hard to improve The Stute, but I also hate how much progress they made because now it’s too easy for The Stute to just slip back underground.

I feel like I have twice the pressure that former staffs of The Stute had because I have to keep up the high quality AND keep the upward movement by implementing my own ideas. The expectations are high.

Now for the main point of this editorial: All I’m asking is that former members be a little more considerate before they criticize the current state of the organization. If you care about The Stute, support the new executive board and staff. Don’t point out how poorly the club is doing unless you have constructive criticism. I already know how we’re doing so you don’t have to tell me to make me feel bad.

Over the weekend, a former member of The Stute asked what was up with our website. I didn’t know what he meant exactly, but he pointed out that none of the articles were published from last week’s issue.

I thought, “Oh, the website isn’t down or anything, it’s just that the new articles haven’t been published yet.” I also felt pretty crappy about that and felt like I should have delegated this task or stayed in the office another twenty minutes, but honestly, online is a lower priority than print, delivery, or my sanity. I can’t devote all of my time to The Stute.

I told him that we don’t have a Webmaster – so there’s nobody directly responsible for maintaining the website – and I couldn’t do it, so nobody did it. Then, he volunteered to update the website. I really appreciated this.

However, about two days later, a little exchange popped up in our old Slack group criticizing The Stute. An alumnus found out we’re using GroupMe now instead of Slack and made a joke, “Wow. That’s really disappointing. Hopefully The Stute improves in future years.”

No big deal, I prefer Groupme because it’s more streamline than having to check several channels. But then, it didn’t seem like a joke when he added, “I mean, there was also the incident where The Stute didn’t even publish online the other week. . . A lot of alumni read online. . . Also I heard from [former member] since he was the one who had to publish everything just so he could read the paper.”

To quote some other members, “Ouch.”

This really annoyed me for several reasons. First of all, former member didn’t *have to* publish the articles online to read the paper. The print issues were distributed all over campus (by our Managing Editor while we are still looking for a work-study student to hire). Second, he has a Stute WordPress account and could see the back end if he was really so interested in reading without the physical. Third, this means that former members are talking about The Stute in a negative light which freaks me out even more than I already am. Lastly, this person offered no constructive ideas or positive support that would be conducive to timely online publication.

So, again, please do not be like these former members when you part ways with an organization. If you have something to say, say it nicely.

I would have much rather received an email saying something like, “Hey Lisa, how are you? I noticed that the articles weren’t published online last week and I know a lot of people can only access content through the website. I hope the new class brought you some great members and The Stute staff is doing well this year!”

I’ll admit that maybe I’m just really sensitive but I really care about the success of The Stute on a personal level. I have seen The Stute evolve in just the past two years.

The Stute layout was overhauled, articles were kept to a new level of quality and professionalism, and everything was submitted to print in record time (8:36 p.m. – that’s far before our midnight deadline). The website was kept up to date. The online issue PDFs and email subscriptions went out each Friday. New office computers were built and the old ones upgraded. “The Stute Archive Project” maintained and stored all PDFs in one place. Our social media presence was expanded on Facebook and Twitter.

There are just so many parts of The Stute that didn’t exist when I first joined. Now, it’s hard to maintain and delegate these jobs to new members because they require training and time.

I volunteered for this, and I knew it was going to be a lot of work, so now I’m just asking for support from new and old members as I do my best to continue to build up The Stute.