Saturday, January 21, 2006
We the people of Murray State University....
For those of you that may not know / remember, I'm doing this crazy little job at Murray State called Residential College President. You see, MSU's too good for dorms. We're the Public Ivy University (characterized by all the red brick and ivy everywhere). This slogan, coming on the heels of "Persist, there's no ยข in quitting", is actually an improvement. Anyway, however you want to address it, the Residential Colleges at Murray are something you don't find at any other public university. We have live-in faculty and staff (ideally, there's space for them, anyway), RC identity (which is nice PR for telling commuters "You're assigned to Clark College"), loads of activities, and Tenured faculty serving as College Heads.
In short, it's the Harry Potter system. I go to school in a double-Hogwarts (we have 8 colleges) with less wizards.
Anyway, I have to go through that big long explination to explain why I'm doing this crazy job. You see, the RCA President sits on the Student Government executive board. Student Government was there first. It's older, bigger, has TONS more money, and generally is content to leave RCA alone if RCA leaves them alone. Oh, we'll work together on big stuff, but we'd both rather not have to worry about what the other one is doing day to day.
I sat on the Senate, what might be considered the most executive branch of our SGA, if we ever got to divvying up branches, for 3 years before taking the job as RCA president. I was always involved in my Residential College as well, but never really looked directly at RCA. When I did, I ran on a massive reform platform.
Now I'm halfway through and have done next to nothing.
So now, finally, we're rounding the curve where you find out the point of this little narrative.
The top thing I told myself I wanted to accomplish this year was a complete and total re-drafting of the RCA constitution. The current document is -no joke- two articles shy of the US Constitution and, if bound similarly, would probably be about the same size. It's all written with the right ideas at heart, but sometimes they're phrased terribly. Others are redundant. And there's no by-laws, everything's just stuffed into this massive document.
Anyway, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I strapped myself in and marked up EVERY little error. First I did it grammatically, then structurally, now my executive board (the RCA one, not the SGA one) and I are beginning the process of looking at it ideologically. We're picking out stuff for reform, and really trying to decide why we do what we do where. It's tough. RCA's had an identity crisis since day one. We don't know if we're a programming body (one that focuses on developing Residential College events), a legistlative body, or a mix of both. I'm beginning to look at us as an advocacy group. Sure, the Senate represents a cross section of every major and everybody and blablabla. 1/4 of them live on campus right now. There's less than 5 non-Greeks (and I'm not going to touch greek / non-greek relations w/a 10 foot pole). And the Senate, like I said earlier, is an older organization. They're set in stone on a lot of things. RCA's not. We're Housing Employees (at least 1/2 of us are), and we're working daily with our Residential Colleges to keep this crazy system rolling. I can't tell you how many people I've explained the residential college system to. I can tell you that every year Clark sees more people trying to get involved with it. RCA's a confederacy. We're 8 presidents, each with our own agendas, and each with our own pair of aids. We come together to do things together and to figure out what'll best benefit us. Our previous president considered the Residential Colleges the identifying factor of MSU. Well, we're going to keep it that way.
Anyway, we're a unique bunch in the RCA. And, in drafting this, I'm trying to capture that. I spent a month on the preamble. Then I left it at home in Nashville (go figure). But it's great, and it captures everything RCA is. Now I'm getting ready to present it. Im' starting off a long road of legislation, but by the end of it I know at least 22 people who will have no doubt in their minds what it means to be part of the Residential Colleges at Murray State.
I'm re-typing things this afternoon. I'll keep you updated, because I know some of you are part of this whole fiasco. If you're not, don't worry, I'll put RCA in the title and you can know to skip it.
It's good to be back. ¶ 0 comments
In short, it's the Harry Potter system. I go to school in a double-Hogwarts (we have 8 colleges) with less wizards.
Anyway, I have to go through that big long explination to explain why I'm doing this crazy job. You see, the RCA President sits on the Student Government executive board. Student Government was there first. It's older, bigger, has TONS more money, and generally is content to leave RCA alone if RCA leaves them alone. Oh, we'll work together on big stuff, but we'd both rather not have to worry about what the other one is doing day to day.
I sat on the Senate, what might be considered the most executive branch of our SGA, if we ever got to divvying up branches, for 3 years before taking the job as RCA president. I was always involved in my Residential College as well, but never really looked directly at RCA. When I did, I ran on a massive reform platform.
Now I'm halfway through and have done next to nothing.
So now, finally, we're rounding the curve where you find out the point of this little narrative.
The top thing I told myself I wanted to accomplish this year was a complete and total re-drafting of the RCA constitution. The current document is -no joke- two articles shy of the US Constitution and, if bound similarly, would probably be about the same size. It's all written with the right ideas at heart, but sometimes they're phrased terribly. Others are redundant. And there's no by-laws, everything's just stuffed into this massive document.
Anyway, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I strapped myself in and marked up EVERY little error. First I did it grammatically, then structurally, now my executive board (the RCA one, not the SGA one) and I are beginning the process of looking at it ideologically. We're picking out stuff for reform, and really trying to decide why we do what we do where. It's tough. RCA's had an identity crisis since day one. We don't know if we're a programming body (one that focuses on developing Residential College events), a legistlative body, or a mix of both. I'm beginning to look at us as an advocacy group. Sure, the Senate represents a cross section of every major and everybody and blablabla. 1/4 of them live on campus right now. There's less than 5 non-Greeks (and I'm not going to touch greek / non-greek relations w/a 10 foot pole). And the Senate, like I said earlier, is an older organization. They're set in stone on a lot of things. RCA's not. We're Housing Employees (at least 1/2 of us are), and we're working daily with our Residential Colleges to keep this crazy system rolling. I can't tell you how many people I've explained the residential college system to. I can tell you that every year Clark sees more people trying to get involved with it. RCA's a confederacy. We're 8 presidents, each with our own agendas, and each with our own pair of aids. We come together to do things together and to figure out what'll best benefit us. Our previous president considered the Residential Colleges the identifying factor of MSU. Well, we're going to keep it that way.
Anyway, we're a unique bunch in the RCA. And, in drafting this, I'm trying to capture that. I spent a month on the preamble. Then I left it at home in Nashville (go figure). But it's great, and it captures everything RCA is. Now I'm getting ready to present it. Im' starting off a long road of legislation, but by the end of it I know at least 22 people who will have no doubt in their minds what it means to be part of the Residential Colleges at Murray State.
I'm re-typing things this afternoon. I'll keep you updated, because I know some of you are part of this whole fiasco. If you're not, don't worry, I'll put RCA in the title and you can know to skip it.
It's good to be back. ¶ 0 comments
