Revitalized RVP deserves its current blanket tax funding

By Jeremy Kao     2/16/16 12:35pm

I went to my first Rice Student Television meeting as a freshman during my first week at Rice. Having enjoyed film production in high school, I was excited to see what I could accomplish at the collegiate level. What I saw at that meeting didn’t impress me. The club seemed small, and there appeared to be a void of creativity. Their most exciting projects were filming student Senate meetings and cultural shows. Disappointed, I didn’t return for the next meeting.

Later that semester, I saw a friend involved with his college’s student television station showcase his work there — an original miniseries, complete with several 23-minute episodes, that he wrote and directed. Inspired, I came back to RTV the next year, determined to replicate my friend’s creative efforts. Over the next three years with RTV, I have seen mixed success. We made some creative videos that showcased our members’ passions and interests, but for the most part RTV continued being the “go-to” club for filming events. Nearly every weekend we had another cultural show to film. And a two-hour show takes four hours to film and six hours to edit. We were a team of student volunteers doing the work a professional organization would find overwhelming. I saw how the club was dying, year to year. At every semester’s interest meeting, potential new members would fill the room. They would all be like me during my first meeting — excited to begin their journey in video production. And just like me, they would all inevitably disappear in the next few weeks, disillusioned with the work we were doing. No one, it turns out, has a passion for filming events.

During my tenure as RTV programming director, the core membership of the club shrank to four. Three were graduating the following year. Drastic action needed to be taken, or soon there wouldn’t be a club at all. Thus, in Fall 2015 RTV leadership made the joint decision to rebrand our organization into one that more properly reflected student interests. We emerged as Rice Video Productions, emphasizing individual, creative projects, but still retaining a dedication to filming the major events at Rice like Orientation Week, Beer Bike and Mr. Rice. The effect of our rebranding was immediate. We had a record amount of attendance at our first meeting of the year, but the most astounding part was that members were interested in staying involved. This revitalization culminated in our biggest project ever: the “NOD BODS” video, which involved over 20 Rice students. It currently sits as one of our highest all-time most viewed videos on YouTube. It is a project I had been striven to accomplish ever since I saw my friend’s miniseries at his TV station. I was sure this was an important first step to restoring the vitality, reputation and creativity of Rice student television.

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Unfortunately, many of you know the story after that. The Student Association decreed our rebranding a violation of our original goals as an organization and recommended that our blanket tax, the sole source of our funding, be removed. The student body will likely approve this decision since RTV in past years, due to a lack of student interest, has not been as visible around campus. Still, there is a certain irony to this. Student interest in our club was dying, so we made a key decision that revitalized it. In response, despite our newfound successes in recruiting and retaining members, our funding may be revoked. One could even say RVP was more deserving of funding than RTV, and yet it is the other way around.

I believe we made the right decision in revamping our club into one Rice students are more interested in, in terms of both joining and watching our content. I also believe that recommending our sole source of funding be removed is a highly drastic action in response to our genuine attempt to better serve student interests. I hope the student body will recognize this unjustness and vote against depriving RVP of the resources it needs to continue rebuilding. But no matter what happens, we as a club will move on. Despite the controversy, student membership remains the highest it has been in years. So, together we will see what Rice Video Productions accomplishes in the future, with or without blanket tax. I am confident its legacy will be greater than that of the stagnating Rice Television I saw during my first meeting all those years ago.

Jeremy Kao is a Hanszen College junior and RVP programming director.

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