Part 2: Juggling Commitments and Time Management (Done)
Part 3: Inter Hall Games (IN PROGRESS)
Part 4: Points, Masterlists, and most importantly who "should" stay (NOT DONE)
Part 5: JCRC
Part 6: Leadership
Seeing as the open call for elects have already been released, I figured I should give some of my thoughts on the JCRC, Junior Common Room Committee. I know it's weird that I'm skipping ahead to part 5 when I haven't done the previous 2. But hey, reasons.
Like before, there are going to be over-generalizations as much as I can try to avoid them. Particularly, I will make a lot of effort to not generalize what I "think" other people think, but that does not mean I'm going to stray away from patterns that I notice which could be totally wrong or unfounded. There is a lot of misinformation around complex issues and Hall is no exception.
I suspect this will be the first piece that I'll post on facebook, so I'm totally prepared to face the backlash (Psst, I'm totally not.)
Anyway, this is what I think of the JCRC.
~~~
For those who are unaware, Junior Common Room Committee is the top of the food chain in tersm of student body groups in the hall system. To simplify it, it would be closest to the Student Council in other schools, although they do not take care of discipline or conduct issues. They pretty much act as a liaison between the SCRC (Senior Common blah blah blah, basically profs that stay in the halls and act as some sort of senior resident here) and the rest of the students.
Now that explanations are out of the way, here are my real thoughts. The JCRCs that I have experienced over the last 4 years have all fallen short of my expectations. This statement can be explained in 1 of 2 ways: either my expectations are too high, or they have been performing way below what should be a reasonable standard.
A lot of my issues with them tend to be leadership-based, so I will try to stay on topic and focus on issues that apply directly or primarily to JCRC members and the system they reside in.
First and foremost, there is very little accountability on JCRC's shoulders. Sure, they are scrutinized to an absurd level before things even get started. But they seldomly need to take responsibility for their actions or their mistakes after the fact. We have seen a lot of under-the-table Masterlisters coming in and contributing nothing to hall. We have seen very disproportionate treatment of particular CCAs or groups of people. And we have also seen people being taken advantage on for being nice, usually those who give up their time for causes nobody else wants to do. As of 4 years, I've seen one case of repercussion on a member, and that is for a pretty extreme case. The milestone inconsistency from last year was never addressed. The milestones for gold and silver bandings were jacked up to pretty difficult levels in an effort to reduce inflation. Guess what, many groups actually pulled it off, but ended up given an unfair banding due to the same inflation issue. Many had to back their milestone documents up and email back in order to get their deserved banding or just accept a lower banding than what you were promised. It's pretty bullshit. Most still ended up getting lower than what they deserved, although I would say, a few did get higher than they should have. Keep this in mind as I talk about the subsequent issues.
The system breeds a certain level of self-serving-"ness". I've often heard about "elects-hunting", which is essentially peer pressuring a new guy into taking a job that has no volunteers for a relatively long amount of time. That practice is immensely stressful for the person involved, borderline unethical. And the part I disagree with the most is that they often just sweet talk their way in. See, the biggest concern most people have is the lack of time, either that they prefer to study and maintain their grades or they would rather keep doing their 3 or 4 activities. And you know it's incredibly bullshit when someone actually tells this naive, uninformed kid that you will confirm have time to pursue other things, and that JCRC won't take up that much time. How can you say that in the same breath as saying that you may have to give up a few CCAs in order to do JCRC? Everyone who has eyes knows that this is a time-consuming job. This is not an outlier case, it happens pretty much every year with every "potential" candidate. Don't start their task off with such a blatant lie.
Now, a lot of my peers add on to my rant and say "They don't understand what people on the ground are doing!" I don't quite agree. The analogy I like to use here is the PAP ministers. Unlike other countries, they often take up portfolios that they have little prior experience in and they operate so high above the chain of command that they cannot possibly understand every group of people under their charge. That is an essential limitation that I am willing to accept. Because leadership on that level requires very broad, abstract understanding of how to move forward on a big-picture level. I get it. What I'm not willing to accept on the other hand is the inconsistency. Inconsistency with different issues. Inconsistency with different people. Just the inability to be fair. The points thing comes to mind most frequently but I'm sure there are many more examples out there. Many things that we as hall residents do become reduced to tickmarks on a checklist and the human element is then lost. Effort is hard to quantify and as such, CCAs that rely on hard numbers usually win out, like bizcom or photographers, while groups like Dance or SMC. It's a lazy fallback when you don't know what to do and you've never really thought hard about this issue. The block/social comm is also another big issue of contention that I won't mention here less I overkill on this topic.
Most if not all the JCRCs I've witnessed has never gotten past the "keeping the ship afloat" phase. They usually just run the day-to-day and try to prevent everything from falling apart. I remember coming in as a freshmen and thinking that the amazing freedom and maturity of university students means that they would be able to really push things forward in an awesome or semi life-changing way. Things like RHEX fall under this category. Initiatives that serve to better the community in whole or in part. But I didn't manage to see this in my time here. I do see a bit of small initiatives here and there by CCA heads (like the Phoenix Press newsletters) that try to better the place. But I haven't really seen anything substantial by the most powerful among us. I don't even see the effort to move forward as a community. All I see is a lot of routine and a lot of lip service. The closest is the archival thing a few years ago, which while useful on paper, has yet to serve as a practically useful tool for incoming leaders. I don't even know if they have still been carrying on with this practice, because I know I haven't been asked to submit anything. At this point, you can't really look at them as leaders so much as liaison, and that's exactly my viewpoint for the later part of my years here.
At the start of every election, the elects will often state why they wish to pursue this position. Often times you will hear about passion or making this place an even better one. What I've come to realize is that your intentions as a person no longer matters to me. I don't care if you are the most kind-hearted, genuine, sincere, trust-worthy, hard-working person on the planet. I just care about what you plan to do and whether you can do it. Because I've seen good people falter under the weight of the decisions they have had to make, the sacrifices that they have given. After 4 years here, I can't see this as a altruistic or morally right thing to do anymore, being a JCRC member/leader. All I see is another task that needs to be taken up by some poor shmuck with CAP to burn.
~~~
tl;dr Don't be a JCRC member unless you think it's going to help in your resume. Above are 4 reasons why it's a still a terrible idea.
Addendum: Unfortunately, due to length, I was unable to add my own suggestions or changes that can improve this system. But believe me when I say this is a systemic problem, meaning a good leader can come in and make everything sunshine and rainbows again, but it's still gonna collapse once he's gone and nobody good replaces him.
