At a four-year university, student leadership inherently turns over quickly, and with those transitions comes the need to hand over responsibilities, knowledge, and materials. Lots of materials.
From archival documents to equipment and event decorations, the student captains, presidents, and editors of on-campus organizations become entrusted custodians of boxes of stuff.
This proves challenging in a dorm room barely big enough for the personal belongings of two people. I, and my very understanding roommates, can attest to this. During my time as PR and events director and then editor-in-chief of The Buzz magazine, I came into possession of quite an array of items, including a fog machine, homemade SPLASH posterboards, and approximately one trillion tealight candles. In fact, even after moving off campus and stepping down from my roles, these things still occupy my living room because I have more space to spare than other students.
Co-editor-in-chief Analise Bruno, who still holds that role today, also knows firsthand just how many materials are involved in supporting Buzz activities and promoting our articles.
“We use a lot of second-hand costumes and props for our photo shoots,” she said. “We’ve rented camera equipment from FPS, but mostly our student photographers have their own, so they’re storing cameras, lights, bounceboards, and more in their rooms. We also host two to three major events every semester, including a launch party for our print issue, so we get all sorts of themed decorations for those, as well as the physical magazines and a blow-up poster of the cover.”
She talked about how as much as the creative students in The Buzz value reduce, reuse, recycle, it becomes difficult when there isn’t enough space under peoples’ dorm beds to store everything, and it often ends up thrown away and reordered next time.
“We had been using an off-campus storage facility in Allston using our club’s allocated funding for a period of time,” says Bruno. “But when they changed the rules about what we could use our money for, the bills stopped getting paid, and we lost access to the unit. All Buzz materials and past magazine issue archives went to auction.”
Since its founding in 2009 as the first student magazine at BU, The Buzz has grown exponentially in terms of both membership and required resources. It has always aimed to offer professional experience and community to students, but with the emergence of this supply storage problem, the latter purpose has expanded in unexpected ways.
“Currently, we have our stuff spread out between apartments and dorms all across campus,” says Bruno.
Keeping track of club materials is no longer the sole responsibility of a student leader or event planner. With the lack of a centralized storage location, it has become a group effort. Members of The Buzz community offer what they can — even if that’s simply the back corner of their dorm closet for a box of magazines — in a collective effort to keep the organization running.
“BU sustainability is a huge initiative that has been building over the last couple years,” says Bruno. “I wonder if storage could be included in that? Or if the SLIC (Student Leadership & Impact Center) could offer shared community supplies that all clubs can borrow from for commonly used items and return them, like FPS does? I think there’s possibilities for solutions, but until then we have each other.”
The SLIC did not respond to requests for interview.
Anna McClean is a creative storyteller pursuing her Bachelor of Science degree in public relations. Following graduation, she hopes to use her PR skills and passion for environmental justice to pursue a career in science communication.
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