An Open Response II

Apologies for not keeping to my word. Things got unexpectedly busy since Tuesday, so I was unable to follow up on my previous post as promised.

Anyway I left you on the points that Tembusu ought to be a place of learning, and there currently doesn't seem to be enough of it. Moving on, I find that inherent in Cedric's arguments (as well as many others' who've I've heard over the past few days) is the underlying notion of a cohesive college identity. What often surfaces from this is this need to distinguish Tembusu from two main "competitors" — the halls and the other two colleges (i.e. Cinnamon and Angsana).

To make a sweeping generalization, I think Tembusians generally wish to distinguish themselves as more "fun" than Cinnamon, but more "intellectual" than the halls. (Angsana is often left out of the game.) To what proportion the college should ideally be "intellectual yet fun" fundamentally fuels the ideologies that are currently being contested. From what it seems, Cedric finds that there hasn't been enough intellectual-orientated activities and events. The other school of thought appears to be satisfied with the current mix, and have taken a stance cautious stance towards Cedric's appeal for less "rah-rah" and more intelligent discourse.

Personally, I don't agree with this framework. To be frank I'm not the biggest supporter of the 'rah-rah' events either, but not because of their lack of intellectual content. I'm beginning to find that my issue with such events is that it encourages only superficial networking for its participants. To me, the composition of intellectual/ fun/ learning events and activities should not be a benchmark for the college's identity construction.

As it is, the Fellows of the college have taken a very laissez faire approach to establishing the college identity, meaning the negotiation of Tembusu identity is left largely to forces of student interests and activities. Thus, the 'nature' of the college actually is quite fluid (in the long run), and would naturally change with the types of individuals and the activities they engage in. This means that there really isn't an "ideal" image or identity that the college is meant to project. Thus, to argue for a more intellectual (or more anything) college on this grounds would be quite moot.

Assuming that Tembusu's identity is left to its social economy to define (and redefine), establishment of college identity should not be the motivation behind the events and activities we organize/ participate in. I propose that community-building ought to be the highest priority for so. This means events and activities should be designed to maximize socialization that establishes and maintains close friendships, common interests and openness to new experiences.

This is why I have been arguing for more small scale events rather than large scale ones. Smaller events allow for more close and in-depth interaction, where the opportunity for the individuals interacting to learn from each other and establish meaningful relationships is bigger. This is opposed to large-scale events which promotes broad but superficial interaction to help people network and mingle. Both are equally important for community-building, although I believe frequent and meaningful close interaction is what distinguishes a tightly-bound (and happy) community from a fragmented (and unhappy) one.

So in other words, I don't think this discourse about Tembusu's events ought to be an issue of intellectual vs "rah-rah" pursuit. What should matter are the relationships that are being built, and how we make our life in college both a meaningful and beneficial learning experience.