Looking for Hall leaders
FEATURE by Low May Ann
In April 2011, NUS King Edward VII Hall was supposed to elect her student government. Flyers were pasted on walls and emails sent out, calling for presidential candidates. Weeks passed without a single answer. The deadline was duly extended.
Five months and another two deadline extensions later, the situation had not changed. Hall-wide plans had ground to a halt. Even though the seniors had declared KEVII Hall in an emergency “autopilot mode” and each previous year’s head took charge of their old co-curricular activity, nobody knew how to proceed.
Only on the 1st of September did KEVII Hall officially elect its student government: a shoo-in as this year's presidential team went uncontested for the first time in five years.
KEVII isn't the only hall to experience this shortage of student leaders. Residents from at least three other NUS halls have noticed the increasingly persistent lack of leadership.
For example, four to six out of 12 student government positions were left empty last year in Raffles Hall, said Tommy Toh Wei Xiong, the Raffles Hall student president. It took personal cajoling from the existing team to fill the remaining slots.
In Eusoff Hall, third-year resident Nicole Tay said she noticed the competition for hall leadership drop this year, and her friend had to be “sabotaged” into the role of Culture Secretary.
The remaining halls were not available for comment on the statistics of unmanned leadership positions. But on the media websites for Eusoff, Temasek and Sheares Hall, candidates for the hall’s governing body could be seen running uncontested; though in previous years they would have at least one member in opposition.
Toh pointed out that student residents tend to prioritize their studies. “Those who can cope with both hall and studies are in the minority,” he said. The pool for potential hall leaders, therefore, is even smaller.
“New batches of freshmen coming in are spending more time in their studies,” said Na Kok Yong, the Sheares Hall president. “So it results in relatively lesser bonding time. This as a whole resulted in a lower sense of belonging, and people are less likely to take up positions which they don’t have a sense of belonging for.”
Eddie Tan, KEVII’s student president, believes the deeper reason is the “mismatch of expectations” from some hall residents. He said students are not getting the hall experience of their dreams, and in a fit of disappointment, refuse to get involved further. “They think hall will come to them,” he said. “When it doesn’t happen, they seek their needs somewhere else, like external NUS CCAs.”
So hall residents coming in “just to play”, as Toh put it, won’t have an interest in administrative work. Like he once was, they could be more involved in NUS clubs than their hall ones, and as such feel disinclined to choose hall.
Or, like Na suggested, perhaps they are reluctant because they think faculty clubs hold more prestige than hall positions, for less work.
So why did the presidents decide to take up leadership, despite all these factors? Each of them separately expressed feeling a deep, personal sense of duty to contribute to their hall. The presidents hope to inspire the same sense of commitment in the younger residents, and are making plans to realise their visions.
Tan wants to restore the appeal of leadership in KEVII Hall. “We will always have energy to tap on if we enjoy what we’re doing,” he said. “I’d like to help leaders pursue the things that matter to them, help them to realise their dreams, in little things like removing red tape.”
He aims to give hall leaders more freedom to pursue creative ideas, like a “hall-wide laser tag competition” proposed recently. Tan wants to promote the activities backed by passion, and cut those that are not.
Toh plans to promote the governing body’s image as a desirable and prestigious position in Raffles Hall, and to reduce the workload for leaders by fully utilising the summer holidays. “Hopefully people will see it as something very ‘on’ (active), that people will want to join,” he said.
Similarly, Na is seeking to raise the hall leadership’s image “by engaging the students more – simply in terms of making our presence felt by being there for events, being there…during meetings and so on”. Like Tan and Toh, he wants to focus on the grooming system so that “those involved in main committees will take up directorship subsequently.”
The search for a willing hall leader and ready manpower is repeated every year as students leave their residential halls. Though some halls are experiencing the shortage more than others, many hall leaders have responded to the consequences and are, at last, setting into motion strategies to fix the problem.
In April 2011, NUS King Edward VII Hall was supposed to elect her student government. Flyers were pasted on walls and emails sent out, calling for presidential candidates. Weeks passed without a single answer. The deadline was duly extended.
Five months and another two deadline extensions later, the situation had not changed. Hall-wide plans had ground to a halt. Even though the seniors had declared KEVII Hall in an emergency “autopilot mode” and each previous year’s head took charge of their old co-curricular activity, nobody knew how to proceed.
Only on the 1st of September did KEVII Hall officially elect its student government: a shoo-in as this year's presidential team went uncontested for the first time in five years.
KEVII isn't the only hall to experience this shortage of student leaders. Residents from at least three other NUS halls have noticed the increasingly persistent lack of leadership.
For example, four to six out of 12 student government positions were left empty last year in Raffles Hall, said Tommy Toh Wei Xiong, the Raffles Hall student president. It took personal cajoling from the existing team to fill the remaining slots.
In Eusoff Hall, third-year resident Nicole Tay said she noticed the competition for hall leadership drop this year, and her friend had to be “sabotaged” into the role of Culture Secretary.
The remaining halls were not available for comment on the statistics of unmanned leadership positions. But on the media websites for Eusoff, Temasek and Sheares Hall, candidates for the hall’s governing body could be seen running uncontested; though in previous years they would have at least one member in opposition.
Toh pointed out that student residents tend to prioritize their studies. “Those who can cope with both hall and studies are in the minority,” he said. The pool for potential hall leaders, therefore, is even smaller.
“New batches of freshmen coming in are spending more time in their studies,” said Na Kok Yong, the Sheares Hall president. “So it results in relatively lesser bonding time. This as a whole resulted in a lower sense of belonging, and people are less likely to take up positions which they don’t have a sense of belonging for.”
Eddie Tan, KEVII’s student president, believes the deeper reason is the “mismatch of expectations” from some hall residents. He said students are not getting the hall experience of their dreams, and in a fit of disappointment, refuse to get involved further. “They think hall will come to them,” he said. “When it doesn’t happen, they seek their needs somewhere else, like external NUS CCAs.”
So hall residents coming in “just to play”, as Toh put it, won’t have an interest in administrative work. Like he once was, they could be more involved in NUS clubs than their hall ones, and as such feel disinclined to choose hall.
Or, like Na suggested, perhaps they are reluctant because they think faculty clubs hold more prestige than hall positions, for less work.
So why did the presidents decide to take up leadership, despite all these factors? Each of them separately expressed feeling a deep, personal sense of duty to contribute to their hall. The presidents hope to inspire the same sense of commitment in the younger residents, and are making plans to realise their visions.
Tan wants to restore the appeal of leadership in KEVII Hall. “We will always have energy to tap on if we enjoy what we’re doing,” he said. “I’d like to help leaders pursue the things that matter to them, help them to realise their dreams, in little things like removing red tape.”
He aims to give hall leaders more freedom to pursue creative ideas, like a “hall-wide laser tag competition” proposed recently. Tan wants to promote the activities backed by passion, and cut those that are not.
Toh plans to promote the governing body’s image as a desirable and prestigious position in Raffles Hall, and to reduce the workload for leaders by fully utilising the summer holidays. “Hopefully people will see it as something very ‘on’ (active), that people will want to join,” he said.
Similarly, Na is seeking to raise the hall leadership’s image “by engaging the students more – simply in terms of making our presence felt by being there for events, being there…during meetings and so on”. Like Tan and Toh, he wants to focus on the grooming system so that “those involved in main committees will take up directorship subsequently.”
The search for a willing hall leader and ready manpower is repeated every year as students leave their residential halls. Though some halls are experiencing the shortage more than others, many hall leaders have responded to the consequences and are, at last, setting into motion strategies to fix the problem.