New ARISTA Executive Council Inducted

ARISTA’s Executive Council (EC) for the 2019-2020 year, officially inducted on May 29, is comprised of juniors President Mina Ivkovic, Vice President of Events and Services Jeremy Lee, Vice President of Operations Caroline Magoc, and Vice President of Web Development Hilary Zen.

ARISTA is Stuyvesant’s honor society, and plays an active role in supporting Stuyvesant’s community. Members participate in running in-school events, such as parent teacher conferences, and volunteer throughout New York City. They also tutor fellow students in all subjects through a variety of services, including but not limited to one-on-one tutoring, AIS, and online essay editing. ARISTA’s tutoring services provide valuable help to students who are struggling in classes or want to review material before a test.

Each vice president leads a committee that works on specific tasks related to a different aspect of ARISTA. The Events Committee is in charge of finding and directing community service events across the city, as well as events at Stuyvesant, such as the open houses or parent teacher conferences. The Operations Committee, replacing the Tutoring Committee in the 2018-2019 year as many of the functions of the Tutoring Committee became obsolete, manages the peer tutoring system as well as the logistics behind ARISTA. Due to these responsibilities, an important role of the Operations Committee is to assist the Web Development Committee. The Web Development Committee updates and manages the website, which is integral to every aspect of ARISTA, from the setup of peer tutoring, essay editing, and volunteering at events, to the application process for prospective members. Each committee works closely with the president and other committees to ensure that ARISTA runs smoothly.

ARISTA has demonstrated more independence by recently breaking off from the National Honor Society (NHS) and not renewing its charter on StuyActivities, thus causing the institution to lose its vote on the SU Cabinet and its national title. Ultimately, ARISTA’s decision not to renew their membership with NHS was not because of philosophical differences between the two organizations, but more so related to the fact that NHS’s rules and guidelines were impractical in a large school such as Stuyvesant. "We [ARISTA] decided it would be better to be our own organization because we would have more freedom and autonomy over how we run," outgoing senior and former President Julia Arancio said regarding the split. For example, the NHS constitution details that chapters are expected to hold meetings with all members once a month, which past ECs found difficult to maintain considering the over-200 ARISTA members. As an independent organization, ARISTA can tailor itself to the unique needs of Stuyvesant.

ARISTA’s new independence from NHS also allows the new EC to continue the system of credit requirements on a semester basis. Many members had difficulty fulfilling event requirements during the second trimester because of the holidays during that time of year, which resulted in fewer school days. Arancio, who implemented this system from the first trimester of 2018-2019, believes that this modification has made fulfilling requirements for ARISTA members easier and less stressful.

Overall, the board's trajectory for this upcoming school year is focused around opening up more opportunities for members of ARISTA and supporting the changes implemented by the current Executive Committee following ARISTA’s split from NHS.

An initiative that the EC plans to begin is the expansion on ARISTA’s current partnerships to other organizations. ARISTA has long-term relationships with programs such as MoMath and SummerStage, and the council hopes to establish more of these such connections with a greater variety of different institutions.

However, there seems to be a significant amount of issues regarding communication between ARISTA’s committees and their volunteers. Among these includes a problem regarding the unfair giving of strikes. “I remember one time [...] I signed up for AIS but the teacher was absent, and I e-mailed ARISTA, and ARISTA said that they’ll still give me a strike unless the teacher e-mails them and tells them that they were absent, but the teacher didn’t know how to use a computer, and I couldn’t convey that to them,” a senior and ARISTA member said in an anonymous interview.

The distribution of credits and attendance for various ARISTA events is another subject that has been causing some complications within the honor society. The EC stressed the importance of earning credits ahead of time in order to not be behind by the end of the designated semester. The rush of members fulfilling credit requirements has been more difficult to manage as most events are capped at a certain number of volunteers. As a result, there have not been enough events available near the end of the semester for all ARISTA members to fulfill their credit requirements for events. “I mean, this trend with kids not going at the beginning of the year and waiting until the very last minute to get credits in isn’t something that’s exclusive to last year or this year, and it’s happened, and it’s going to continue happening, so we’re trying to have a body that’s more engaged with its community,” Ivkovic said.

However, there is concern among ARISTA members that the apparent difficulty of fulfilling event requirements is not solely the fault of the volunteers. “I feel that a lot of the time they [the Events Committee] have to end up lowering the event credit requirement because of the fact that there just [aren’t] enough events,” senior and Operations Committee member Nten Nyiam said. “And there’s no way for every single ARISTA member to have a fair chance of meeting the credit requirement based on the number of events.”

Additionally, ARISTA has faced issues with its website this year, specifically the waitlist for events and the optimization of the website for phones, some of which are still present. “I remember when I came in as a sophomore, [...] the website worked on phones, but it doesn’t work on phones now, and I think that’s been a big issue for over a year or so,” Nyiam said. “You might want to check the ARISTA website to see when you have an event or AIS, or just something general, maybe during school or before school. And the most convenient way to do that would be through a phone. So by having to go on a computer [...], especially for people who don’t have frees, it’s kind of a big convenience block.”

The Executive Council hopes to address the apparent lack of events by encouraging members to participate in more events during the beginning of each semester, as well as forming more long-term relationships with organizations like soup kitchens. “The lack of event credits is caused by a lot of complacency on the part of the volunteers themselves, and I think that we should encourage them to [...] partake in more events at the beginning of the year or the beginning of the semester so that they can get their event requirements done earlier, and also encourage them to diversify the events that they’re going to,” Lee said. “A lot of the time you have soup kitchens that don’t have full volunteer lists.”

Generally, the council emphasized that a successful experience with the organization is best achieved by finding a balance between responsibility and personal gratification when it comes to the community service every member participates in. “I know that a lot of people have problems with ARISTA, but it’s a two-way street, and if you put the work in, and we put some work in too, I think it could be a really good experience,” Ivkovic said.