San José State’s electronic dance music club, Up & Up, is currently derecognized pending a conduct investigation but continues to move forward through events and activities.
The investigation is being conducted by Student Conduct and Ethical Development, a division of Student Affairs that looks into violations of student conduct, according to an SJSU webpage.
Up & Up Event Coordinator Alan Perez-Vazquez said the decision for the club to go unrecognized by the school was one made by the club itself.
In order for a club to be a recognized student organization (RSO), the club must have a minimum of five enrolled and matriculated SJSU students with two of them being a president and treasurer, according to a webpage from the university.
“We kind of weighed the pros and cons of staying recognized and going unrecognized and realistically, the only thing that it was doing for us was allowing us to table on 7th Street,” Perez-Vazquez said. “So we decided that it was better for us to go unrecognized while fully cooperating with the investigation.”
The Up & Up executive board said that the altercation which launched the investigation was at After Hours, the venue where the club hosted a presale party on Feb. 15, according to a Feb. 12 Instagram post.
“Out of the entire 35 people on our roster, nobody witnessed it because it had nothing to do with our organization,” Perez-Vazquez said. “It was just people looking to start something and we just happened to be on the wrong end.”
Before being investigated, the club was in the process of competing in a ticket presale contest against other colleges nationwide to win a concert for the school, according to a Feb. 24 Instagram post.
This is a competition that the club won last semester, according to an Oct. 21, 2024 article from the Spartan Daily. Up & Up lost the presale contest this spring semester.
Perez-Vazquez said that although the club has been on campus since 2019, it did not become recognized by SJSU until 2022, a fact that was one of the club’s reasons for going unrecognized again.
While the club’s executive board has said that it is cooperating with Student Conduct and Ethical Development regarding the investigation, members have also expressed dissatisfaction with how the investigation is currently being managed, including the club president, Vanessa Valenzuela.
“There’s just a lack of organization within the investigation,” Valenzuela said. “They didn’t reach out for a roster, they just went through our social media and contacted people who aren’t even on the team and who haven’t even been a part of the team for the last two years.”
The Spartan Daily reached out to Student Conduct and Ethical Development for comment, but the office declined to comment because of the ongoing investigation.
Associated Students also involves itself in club and organization affairs, according to the SJSU Associated Students Student Affairs webpage.
The Spartan Daily also made multiple efforts to reach out to A.S. but the student government organization didn’t comment in time for publication.
At the start of the investigation, Social Media Manager Dom Hernandez talked about how the conduct office initially reached out to a different Dominic Hernandez who had no affiliation with the club.
“They didn’t even confirm or look at the roster with our organization and got the wrong Dominic Hernandez for an interview,” Hernandez said.
When it comes to club recognition, Student Involvement, another division of Student Affairs, is placed in charge of the recognition process, according to the SJSU Student Involvement webpage.
“I was transitioning into presidency this semester and they didn’t update the forms and technically I’m officially the treasurer on school documents even though I’m leading as the president,” Valenzuela said. “It kind of shows a lack of care and not really doing stuff for the students.”
Marcus Whitehouse, who is listed as the treasurer, according to the same Instagram page, said he did not receive any forms from Student Involvement to fill out.
“How are you going to hold us accountable when you never reached out to any of us?” Whitehouse said. “Let alone, I’m supposed to be the treasurer of this semester, (but) never got a confirmation or joined the canvas. We went about the process as diligently as possible and yet we get backed up for following the rules.”
While the club is inactive from a university standpoint, it is still continuing to host events, including an event it held on Friday at Nexus Night Club, according to a March 11 Instagram post.
