Two weeks ago, the Office of Undergraduate Student Life published posters for a voting campaign that were intended to encourage the minority population on campus to vote. However, some students took issue with the targeted nature of the campaign, and the fact that minority student organizations, such as BSU and FAST, were not consulted prior to the publication of the posters.
A handful of students have been actively seeking ways to promote diversity and bring more inclusive policies to Stevens. Some of the these students’ end goals are to encourage a more complete illustration of a particular minority’s culture, via song, dance, and food, for example. They want to establish a space for people of color on campus, with similar functionality to the Lore-El Center, and to foster a tighter working relationship with Student Life through the Diversity Educator.
Nasir Montalvo, a Student Government Association senator, first noticed the voting posters on the official Stevens Instagram story. “It was very strange to me that a post like that wasn’t on the Diversity Education Instagram […] it was on the whole Stevens page. We are such a small percentage of students, I don’t know. I felt targeted.” He directly messaged the Instagram page, requesting that the post be taken down. It was removed but replaced with pictures of women instead.
Montalvo screenshotted those pictures, distributed them to several ethnic student organization group chats, and received a large number of voices that agreed with his. “I wrote a huge email to Student Life, Student Affairs, Diversity Education, and just everyone involved with those offices explaining how those ads were not okay, and how the organizations of minorities on campus were upset about that.”
In the email, Montalvo raised concerns about the pictures posted on the Instagram stories. “I think it is very tasteless, for starters, to use such a photo as this to broadcast to the entire Stevens population,” Montalvo wrote. “This was clearly a target placed on the black population of Stevens, which makes up nowhere NEAR the rest of the population attending here. Why are there not GENERAL initiatives to vote being used?”
Some members of the ethnic student organizations disagreed with Montalvo’s vehemence. Anthony Lucero, President of FAST, told The Stute in an email, “It did not seem like it was their intention to single out a minority or make a personal attack against them by using this picture, but I do see how it can be upsetting when taken from a different context.” Lucero pointed out that increased collaboration with Student Life, specifically with a Diversity Educator who shared the students’ beliefs and actively fought for them in Student Life, would be highly profitable, echoing some of the issues Montalvo addressed in his email.
Sara Klein, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs, met with Montalvo last Thursday to further discuss these issues. In a follow-up interview with Montalvo, he said, “She explained their reasoning behind why they posted those advertisements, and it makes a lot of sense now, but the fact remains that it was an issue.” He detailed some of the arrangements that have been made to bring the ethnic student organizations and Student Life closer together in the aftermath of this issue. In a voting rally outside of Pierce Dining Hall, the Black Student Union and the Office of Student Life plan to encourage students to go out and vote. That voting rally came directly from the strife over the voting posters.
In an email interview with Klein, she claimed that voting and voter registration did not seem to be something that student organizations were actively encouraging. “We noticed that few, if any, student organizations were promoting voter registration or encouraging other students to vote. As this is such an important issue of the day, we met that need on our own initiative. If students or organizations have an interest in these topics, they have a means to plan their own events or offer passive education or can absolutely reach out to our team members to collaborate.”
Going forward, Montalvo, Klein, and Lucero have high hopes for the new Diversity Educator and for increased collaboration between Student Life and students. When asked about the Diversity Educator specifically, Lucero said, “Even if this is just a small step, it is definitely necessary to making Stevens more diverse.” Montalvo agreed and mentioned some solutions that were put forth during his meeting with Klein. Klein is most excited about students getting active, getting involved, and approaching Student Life to actively promote and nourish diversity at Stevens.
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