As with many of my posts are, this is really overdue. But these past two weeks (gosh, is that all it has been?) has been really exciting. If you'd ask me, this sem has started of busier than any other sem in Tembusu thus far. We've had so many things going on back to back, it almost hard to breathe!
The energy in the college has been great though. The current freshies are lapping up all the action, and it's quite refreshing to see them bursting with enthusiasm. I'm really looking forward to the upcoming house and CSC elections. I'd like to see what these guys are really made of when it's their turn to take over.
One thing that has surprised me this sem is this new obsession with working out among Tembusu peoples. Quite a bunch of them have committed to doing the insanity workout, and there are masses of seniors and freshies alike going for jogs together. It is very heartening to see this spur of motivation to exercise. At least it feels like a more... wholesome activity to be doing on a school night? Hahaha...
Last Saturday was Family Day... just about the strangest event that the CSC has come up with thus far. I don't really want to dismiss it too quickly, especially since I couldn't attend it, but it seems to me like a pointless event. I can understand the importance of reaching out to parents and family: it's a comfort to parents to know what their children are up to, and as most of their sponsors, they do have a stake in students' lives; it might promote the college as a "family-friendly" environment with good old homey values.
What I can't understand is why make a such a big deal of an event to advertise this stance. To me, this event sounds like an annoying cry for attention. Mainly because the event doesn't make sense on so many levels.
First, there seems to be very little benefit towards the college in taking up Family Day. Because this was a largely 'internal' event, meaning it was targeted at Tembusu residents and their immediate families, it probably does quite little for the college's publicity. It wasn't angled as a fund-raiser either, which would have been a half-decent excuse for such an affair. That means it wasn't for money.
I think this is why the event is so troubling for me: it is a college-wide effort that is done without any clear purpose or benefit to the college collective.
Secondly, there are also little benefits for the families attending. The typical reason for any family to attend is to for them to spend time with their beloved Tembusian, right? But why on Earth bother spending time at an event like Family Day? There are many alternatives out there, and Family Day simply doesn't have a clear selling point that would make it worth anyone's time.
Third, that students have not much reason to be interested in such a day. Which is why I suspect that Family Day didn't have such a great turn out (or so I've heard). It simply boils down to another event that student can wish to attend, again, without any clear benefit to the students. Might I add that I personally would find it awkward to bring my family here.
That is not to dismiss the intentions of Family Day though. I have to gave the organizers credit for recognizing parents demand for being involved with their children and learning about their new living/ learning environment. The problem is that Family Day wasn't posed as an activity that aimed to fulfill any other stakeholders' wants as well. For an event that big, it simply had too shallow an objective. Students could expect little outside the prospect of perhaps "having fun" or "being involved", making Family Day indistinguishable in terms of benefits from any other non-compulsory event or activity.
This means that there were many alternatives to Family Day that could have fulfilled the assumed primary objective of engaging the families of students. An easy example would be the fact that any student could invite his or her family to dinner at Tembusu's dining hall on any weeknight. What's more, I reckon family meals are much stronger representations of "spending time with the family" in our Asian consciousness (though it probably is not exclusive to Asians), and would be the preferred activity in most families anyway.
So, if it really were in the committee's concern encourage families' presence in Tembusian's lives, then perhaps they could rethink how to approach such a goal. One, would be to make structural changes that might reduce barriers to families visiting their Tembusu kin. It could be allowing more flexibility in the quota of meals that a student can accredit to his account in a day, or making the content of our activities and events more transparent to the public.
Need there be a large event, then a more specific objective that is not simply "involving students' families" needs to be in place. Maybe it could be a fund-raiser, an awards ceremony – a performance even. Make an event with a wide enough public appeal, and structure it such that families are allowed and welcomed to participate. That might just work a lot better than declaring a weekend "Family Day" without giving any of its participants any sense of purpose in attending it. Right?
Okay, okay, I'll end my rant here.
Phew.
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