36

The BLUe AND GOLD

Campus neWs
A 5te Ferward fer 5tudent Llfe
5enthll 5ukumar learns abeut the lans fer 5MU students frem the Ufce ef 5tudent Llfe.
T
he Office of Stu-
dent Life (OSL) is
moving to revamp
some aspects of how
they handle CCAs and
Student Life. Students on
the Exco of SMUSA and
the Student Constituent
Bodies (CBDs) have be-
gun undertaking a series
of leadership modules
to complement their
roles as student leaders.
Currently the modules
being offered as part of
this initiative are Risk
Assessment, Facilitation
and Cardio-Pulmonary
Resuscitation (CPR). Other modules
such as Presentation and Writing skills
may eventually be offered as well.
Mr. Wong Yew Tong, the As-
sistant Director for Safety and Student
Leadership, says that this new cur-
riculum is part of a student leadership
roadmap that aims to complement
and value-add to students who hold
leadership positions. As of now, about
170 student leaders are enrolled in this
course.
The hope is that with these
skills, student leaders can better reach
out to the rest of the student body and
influence their peers to engage more in
non-academic activities.
Yew Tong noted that most of
the current batch of students have great
GPAs, but when they go out there, that
well-roundedness is missing. They
are able to talk and present themselves
very well, but when it comes to people-
to-people interaction, things that you
learn when you take part in CCAs, that
life skill is miss-
ing.
By giving
them some-
thing more of
life skills, as
opposed to just
a formal educa-
tion, Yew Tong
says that OSL
wants to pro-
vide them with
the other side
of the report
card. GPAs and
classes is what
you get on a
report card, and
this is the other side that will comple-
ment our students. Hopefully, when
they graduate, they will bring this life
skill with them and this will empower
them to be confident, be aware of
themselves and create a name for SMU
students.
By raising awareness about
the various leadership roles open to
students, and offering these new mod-
ules for student leaders, the hope is that
more students will find it worth their
time to serve their peers, and that they
will step up and become active student
leaders themselves.
OSLs Safety Centre
OSL has also started up a Safety Centre
to oversee all student-organized activi-
ties. The centre will continually review
the safety protocols of all school and
CCA events, and will advise student
organizers on areas to look into and
safety measures to put in place. This
is to ensure that everyone is safe at
these types of events. In addition, the
Centre will regularly check up on CCA
trainings to ensure that safety is a top
priority at all times.
A new way of managing CCA
Records
OSL will also be moving to a new
system for managing student CCA
records. User testing for the Student Life
Management System (SLiMS) began
this year, with students and staff provid-
ing feedback to refine the new system.
The targeted rollout date is 1st January
2011, and when implemented, all CCA
records will be entered into the new
system.
If you have spent a lot of time
contributing to student life, it must do
something for you, it must help you.
SMU recognizes this, so the SLiMS
will be able to churn out a CCA report
that is very professionally done. It acts
to support [your academic transcript]
when you go out and present your-
selves to employers.
The (potential) future of Student
Leadership
Yew Tong hopes that there will be more
non-academic involvement from stu-
dents, and that students are given the
life skills to plan and manage their own
activities, while always keeping safety
in mind.
Ultimately, the aim of these
new initiatives is to further enhance the
process that allows student groups to be
self-running and self-governing bodies.
I guess thats the part where we need to
be more open to changes, open to new
ideas and new ways of doing things.
Thats how we will move forward.