The Student Government Association (SGA) voted against a motion to dissolve RedShift on October 28th, after a lengthy and, at times, heated discussion. The motion to “revoke the Probationary RSO status of, to remove from the New Organization Process, and to dissolve RedShift,” as brought by junior senator Mark Krupinski, represented the culmination of a debate that had been ongoing in private chambers of the SGA for quite some time.
RedShift is Stevens’s literary magazine. According to their constitution, their purpose is “to publish works submitted by the Stevens community and promote creativity at Stevens. RedShift shall serve as a medium for student expression.”
Krupinski claimed that RedShift has not shown any evidence that they are working towards their stated goal of producing a magazine for the arts at Stevens. Their general body has consistently been small, with one general body meeting visited by The Stute consisting of only two members other than the executive board.
RedShift has also had issues maintaining a consistent executive board, with most of their then-current executive board resigning earlier this semester. Nasir Montalvo, a current SGA senator and former Managing Editor of RedShift, spoke at length during the meeting and afterwards on the topic of RedShift’s status. Montalvo, who described himself as one of the people who brought RedShift back to campus in its current incarnation, stated that there was a great amount of disagreement within the executive board as to what direction the organization should move in. Montalvo and those who agreed with him felt that in order to drive submissions to the magazine, RedShift needed to gain a following and recognition on campus by hosting well-publicized events. He expressed frustration that the club had only hosted one event, especially considering that the event was well-received. According to Montalvo, “there is no passion from the e-board.” A final concern raised by Montalvo was that while RedShift had spoken about collaborating with other clubs to publish their works, other clubs “do that for themselves” and have no need to use an external organization such as RedShift for publication.
Media Subcommittee Head Mathew Green and Vice President of Student Interests Dakota Van Deursen had met with Julian Hernandez, Editor-in-Chief of RedShift, prior to the senate meeting. Green stated that during their private meeting, they had asked Hernandez what the status of their publication was and that “it didn’t seem like they were moving towards publishing.” During the Senate meeting, Van Deursen stated that they offered RedShift assistance in managing their organization, but it was “cast aside.”
The Stute reached out to several people involved with this story for comment. Mathew Green stated that “the organization needs to fulfill its purpose or change its purpose,” but also said that he is “happy that RedShift has the opportunity to strive to accomplish their purpose.” Van Deursen responded by writing that he believes “that RedShift has strayed some from their purpose, but not entirely. Of the three stated goals in Article II of their constitution, which outlines their purpose, I think that they have done an admirable job at one, despite much adversity, a shaky job at another, and perhaps lost track of the third: promoting creativity, serving as a medium for student expression, and publishing works, respectively” Van Deursen also recommended that RedShift “should work doubly hard to find and retain a good, dedicated general body base.” When asked what other new organizations can learn from what is happening to RedShift, Green responded that, “Organizations need to know that even though they receive a lot of autonomy, it is not hard to take a microscope to how they operate. Additionally, every organization should operate with its purpose and constitution in mind. They are governing documents for a reason. Furthermore, organizations are run by executive boards that need to work together for the betterment of the organization.” On this topic, Van Deursen, who mused that this was a “pretty odd case,” wrote that, “These problems all popped up at once — as was mentioned in the Senate meeting, losing most of their E-Board likely did not help any of the pre-existing problems lying in wait. I encourage other organizations to learn from the passion and dedication that the current RedShift E-Board has for their organization. Over half of them came to the Senate meeting and fought valiantly to save their organization from dissolution. I commend them for their honesty, and hope that other organizations recognize the effort that they have put into keeping an arts publication afloat at a predominantly STEM school.”
The Stute also reached out to former RedShift Managing Editor Nasir Montalvo. When asked about his experience serving on the RedShift executive board, he characterized it as “stressful.” Expanding, he said that “it was fun putting the club through the New Organization Process, but after that it just kind of turned into “What Now?“ And no one could give a clear answer. Everyone had ideas for what they wanted the club to do, and more than half of the e-board did not agree with where the President was taking this club. After expressing this time and time again, I was shut down. I was not going to support a club that followed people around for interviews and tried to have “launch events’ when there was no one on campus to market this to. We needed real events that would gain traction for us. Again, I was shut down. I was frustrated, and so were the Treasurer and Archivist, so we all quit together.” Furthermore, he expressed doubt towards the new executive board, and stated that he did not believe that most of the senators who backed RedShift during the discussion were fully aware of the current status of RedShift’s operations. Montalvo believes that RedShift should have accepted the assistance of the Vice President of Student Interests. Finally, Montalvo said that “RedShift needs to come up with a clear, concise game plan for how they want to move forward. Last time I was in the club, no one knew what we wanted to do, not even the executive board. If they do that, I do believe they have hope. I do wish them the best.”
Finally, The Stute reached out to the current RedShift executive board for comments. Their executive board currently consists of Editor-in-Chief Julian Hernandez, Managing Editor Sergio Scardigno, Treasurer Hailey Tanner, and Secretary Jasimine Hoagland (the two remaining positions, Publicist and Archivist, are currently vacant). The executive board responded with joint statements authored by all four individuals. When asked if they believed RedShfit was not fulfilling its purpose, the board noted “Yes. Over the past year, RedShift has run into periods of stagnation due to two key aspects of its nature. The first of these results from the intimate interaction between artist and publication. When an artist is deciding to submit their work to a publication, they not only have to feel confident enough in their art to submit it, but they also have to recognize and want to contribute to the platform their work will be displayed on. This leads to the second of these aspects: RedShift depends on having a reliable brand name that people across campus know. After only a year and some change of existing on Stevens campus as a probationary RSO [sic], this task still proves to be difficult to accomplish. Additionally, much internal debate with the previous e-board was had over if RedShift should continue to operate as a publication, but rather as a club that exclusively held events. While the one event we held was successful, exclusively doing events like this was not our purpose.” When asked about their plans for the near future, the board said that they are planning on getting their website up as soon as possible, and will be restructuring their meetings and the methods used to involved general body members. Once the website is online, the board will work with general body members to assist publications being made public. When asked about the future, the board said that they are currently crafting a long-term plan with a more focused direction, and that they will be making that plan public once it is finished.
RedShift is currently a Step 4 Probationary Registered Student Organization (RSO), which means that they have most of the rights and responsibilities of full-status clubs on campus but with certain limitations. One of these limitations is that the SGA can vote at any point to dissolve them (they cannot do this for full-status clubs). It is under this authority that Krupinski’s motion was raised. Ultimately, the senate voted against dissolving the organization. If RedShift wishes to move out of the new organization process and become a full-status organization, they will have to present to the senate, which would then vote on whether or not to approve them. The earliest that they could do this is February 4th, 2019. Until then, the senate could still vote at any time to dissolve them.
Students interested in submitting content to RedShift can do so by emailing their works to redshiftcontent@googlegroups.com.
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