Design major Jasmine Doan joined the Art and Design Club to connect with other artists. Beyond the creative endeavours of pumpkin-painting and sticker-making, club members bond over a new passion: frustration with their club’s pending eligibility and lack of funding.
To become official and secure funding, clubs must go through the Las Positas College Student Government — which holds the key to their legitimacy and $500 stipend each semester. But club members told The Express LPCSG has struggled to uphold its part of the bargain. Their accusations insist the student government has neither kept up with club paperwork nor maintained timely, accurate communication.
“We were just really annoyed because we were following everything by the book,” Doan said. “As soon as we realized there was an issue on our part, we would immediately fix it. Then they would not get back to us for like, two weeks.”
Art and Design Club and Musicology Club have started this semester just how they ended the last: with more questions than answers, and $0 in their account. Members say their empty pockets are jeopardizing their already-stalled plans.
At an LPCSG Executive Board Meeting on Feb. 18, 2026, the Art and Design Club was officially approved for their $500 stipend from fall 2025. The money is yet to appear in their account, according to Doan. They are still awaiting their stipend for spring 2026. The sustained hold-up is pausing plans to teach club members nail art, one of Doan’s main passions as an apprentice nail tech.
Musicology Club is heavily social, but it’s president Meg Gilmour says album-listening parties can only keep members engaged for so long. Like Art and Design, they want to expand the club with hands-on skill development, which heavily relies on funding.
Musicology Club is still hoping to have experts teach club members how to mix music — which comes with a price tag.
“The people that we’re asking to come in aren’t going to do it for free,” Gilmour said, “So a lot of the time, the club meetings tend to be the same thing. It kind of gets a lot of people to not continue to go. They’re like ‘Well, we’re just going to do the same exact thing we did last week.’”
Clubs and programs are often intertwined. Clubs provide a space for students to dip their toes into an interest, and then dive head-first into the program. Connection with program members is an outreach technique that may be curtailed by a lack of support for clubs.
“The importance of the club is to be a supporting, outreach branch of the JAMS program,” said Angelina An, president of Journalism Club. “If they were to terminate our eligibility, I don’t know exactly what that means for us.”
When prompted for comment on communication delays and their action plan moving forward, LPCSG president Naomi Mangini responded via email:
“Over the past year, club engagement at LPC has grown significantly, with student involvement more than doubling. As a student-led organization, LPCSG has worked to adapt its processes to support that strong growth while continuing to serve the campus community. We recognize that some clubs experienced delays in eligibility and funding communication. In response, LPCSG refreshed its website, updated the LPC Student Life Handbook and added two officer positions dedicated to club support and communication. Our focus is on building clear, responsive processes and systems that can sustain continued growth in student life at LPC. With LPCSG elections approaching, we encourage students who are passionate about strengthening student organizations to consider running for office.”
Leaders of clubs such as the Art and Design Club and the Musicology Club said they found themselves roped into near semester-long email threads for clarity on becoming recognized. Their claim: the lack of support and communication detracted from the clubs’s roles as hubs for socialization, interest exploration and skill development. They said club members sacrificed time, effort and their own money to keep members engaged without funding.
LPC website points students to a subpage for student clubs. Questions on the club-activation process are directed to Josué Hernández, program coordinator of student life and leadership, or Sahkar Atal, director of clubs. After submitting a student club application and a club constitution, students are instructed to “await application review and approval notification from the Program Coordinator of Student Life and Leadership or designee.”
The Art and Design Club submitted its fall 2025 club application on Sept. 10, according to documents reviewed by The Express. Club officers exchanged emails with Hernández and Atal detailing officer additions, the club’s constitution, minutes and eligibility.
On Oct. 6, Doan was informed she was ineligible to be a club officer. According to Doan, LPCSG told her the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act — which protects the privacy of student records — prevented student government from explaining her ineligibility. She was directed to registration, which was also prohibited from explaining.
Doan met all three requirements outlined in Article XIV of the LPCSG Bylaws. Club officers must meet and maintain five units of college credit, have a minimum GPA of 2.0 and have LPC as their home campus. She determined through a process of elimination that she was deemed ineligible due to unpaid fees — a stipulation that is yet to be outlined in the LPCSG Bylaws or the Student Club Handbook.
When the Art and Design Club inquired about the handbook inconsistencies, Atal said it should be updated on the website. When prompted again, she said it would be published soon. The handbook was still out of date following both interactions.
On Oct. 23, Doan stepped down as treasurer along with the former president. They were replaced with eligible officers so the club could get its stipend.
The club leaders contend LPCSG’s email response times were inconsistent as they rectified the officer eligibility and attempted to access the budget. Sometimes, according to emails viewed by The Express, the Art and Design Club received a response within a day or two. Other times, they received no response at all. But when they emailed Hernández to cancel their RSVP to the Halloween Club Fair, an event hosted by LPCSG, he replied within an hour.
Doan said she felt disrespected by being invited to club events without being recognized or funded.
“When it’s convenient for us to be a club, you will respond immediately,” she said “But then when we need you to do what your role is, it’s crickets.”
Atal informed the Art and Design Club that it would be approved at the Nov. 12 LPCSG senate meeting. When the club requested confirmation of its approval the following day, it was met with radio silence.
Art and Design Club President Lisa Kim and Adviser Peter Kuo asked to meet with Hernández directly on Nov. 24. Atal responded instead, and wrote that Hernández was out of office. Their club would be reviewed the week after Thanksgiving.
Club applications and funding requests closed on Dec. 2.
On Dec. 10, representatives from the Art and Design Club and LPCSG held a meeting. The departments’ respective deans, Amy Mattern and Christine Sidela, were also present. Kuo set up the meeting to address inconsistencies in the LPCSG handbook, as well as their lack of communication. The meeting concluded with the agreement that the Art and Design Club would receive $1000 in missing funding.
After three months of back-and-forth emails and two meetings, the Art and Design Club was officially recognized in a letter dated Dec. 11. They did not receive the email until Dec. 12 — the last day before finals.
Doan noted that the Art and Design Club’s lack of funding delayed several plans. The club had to either table ideas, outsource materials or pay for them out of pocket.
“This stopped us from doing so many things activity-wise. It’s a really physical club,” Doan said. “I’m an apprentice nail tech. I really wanted to do that for an activity last semester. Because we never had the budget for it, we couldn’t access it.”
The Musicology Club is also awaiting funding for fall 2025 and spring 2026.
Gilmour has been in Musicology Club for over a year, serving as treasurer in fall 2024 and spring 2025, and president in fall 2025. Each semester, the club tried to put on a concert but couldn’t fund it.
The Musicology Club did not hear back from the LPCSG for months after submitting its club application in January 2025. Several weeks later, in a meeting with Hernández and other LPCSG members on the logistics of a concert, Musicology Club was informed that it was not officially recognized.
“What do you mean we’re not an official club? We filled out this paperwork months ago,” Gilmour said, recalling her reaction to that news a year ago. “They pulled up the email, and they had never sent it. It was in their drafts. They were like ‘We’re so sorry. We thought we sent it.’”
After resubmitting the paperwork, Musicology Club was finally recognized near the end of the spring 2025 semester. Members were hopeful the funding would roll over to the next semester.
By fall 2025, several members had left. Gilmour had to rebuild the club from the ground up. Musicology Club sent in its application a few weeks into the semester.
Gilmour’s focus as president was on attracting new members. Come November, Musicology Club was gearing up for its concert and reached out to LPCSG for clarity on how to access their funds.
Gilmour was told the club was still unofficial, as she was ineligible to be an officer. Again, FERPA prevented LPCSG from telling her the reason. After prying, she learned there was a typo with her W number on LPCSG’s end. Gilmour forwarded them the correct number. The week before finals — once again too late for them to throw the concert — the Musicology Club was officialized.
“We’re under a lot of rules that we’re trying to communicate and follow,” Gilmour said. “But we’re getting nothing back. And then we find out way later that something is wrong that they didn’t tell us about, that we could have fixed very easily like, two months ago.”
Musicology Club struggled to keep itself fresh and retain membership on a budget. It was forced to postpone activities that would introduce variety, such as field trips and guest speakers.
“The fact that we had issues going on in the club,” Gilmore said, “plus the fact that we weren’t attracting new members and we weren’t able to put on any events to keep people excited … it really took a hit on the club.”
According to Gilmour, LPCSG never reached out to Musicology Club if there were issues with their paperwork. They had to discover any problems on their own, months later. Gilmour hopes to see changes that streamline the club-approval process.
“If they are genuinely too busy, I would like to see the student government —especially the club section — get more support,” Gilmour said. “Or more independence for the club so there’s less reliance on student government.”
On Feb. 19, Atal sent an email inviting clubs to RSVP for a club training information session, which would be held on Feb. 26 from 2 to 3 p.m. “regarding club expenses and procedures.” Atal encouraged at least two representatives from each club to attend.
Doan confirmed that the email was sent to the former president of the Art and Design Club, raising questions about the state of LPCSG’s club officer lists.
Journalism Club faced its first challenge with eligibility this semester. Kiarra Bautista, the club’s former vice president, is not enrolled at LPC due to a life-changing car accident. She is currently in an intensive phase of rehabilitation, but members say she remains the heart of the club.
Journalism Club elected new officers at their first meeting on Jan. 29. The new vice president’s W number was sent to LPCSG on Feb. 3. No confirmation on the club’s status was given in response.
On Feb. 19, adviser Melissa Korber inquired about the status of Journalism Club, hoping to access funds for an upcoming conference.
Atal informed Korber that the new vice president was ineligible. Atal listed the officer eligibility requirements, adding “No holds on the student’s institutional account.”
Korber noted the delay in communication meant the club could not elect a new officer until Feb. 26. They are waiting to hear back about the officer change.
Now going into the conference, which spans March 5-7, the status of Journalism club remains unconfirmed.
“A lot of these people are going to have to pay out of pocket or just not be able to go,” An said. “Which is why this is so important. I think it’s really annoying. We earned that money.”
Disclosure: The author of this article was a member of the Journalism Club at Las Positas College during the fall 2025 semester. The Journalism Club is affiliated with the Journalism and Media Studies program. The author of this article began investigating the complaints against Student Government in February 2026. Journalism Club experienced similar delays this semester which the author reported for transparency.
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TOP ILLUSTRATION: Some LPC clubs say they grasp for funding from Student Government, their $500 semester stipends just out of reach. Delays in club recognition and the withholding of funds occurred due to inconsistent communication from LPCSG. (Graphic by Jaxyn Good/The Express)
Jaxyn Good is the Managing Editor of The Express. Follow her on Instagram @jaxyngood
