2008 Woodie Awards
Neglecting to Improve
Garie Zoghbi
Issue date: 4/29/08 Section: Opinion
A college experience comes with more than just sitting through lectures listening to professors babble on about information that is irrelevant to your life. Although academics are very important, there is more that the average successful student has on his or her plate. I'm referring to a student engaging themselves in some sort of extra-curricular commitment.
Many join these clubs and organizations for the reason that they feel the need to fill up the empty spaces in their resumes. Some join because they actually like the club and all that it does for the student body.
But it is those students, who take the sometimes scary steps up to the plate, that actually care. And I mean determined individuals that are wholeheartedly on board for seeing the organization improve and succeed. For many student-governed clubs, making big changes happen usually means holding a position with some ability to make and see that improvements are made.
The disheartening part of it all is that there are some individuals in those executive positions that simply don't give a shit about what their organization stands for, nor do they care about doing things the right way or following the written fundamentals in their own constitutions.
It's situations like these where some members may question why certain people hold certain positions. It's also the fault of the members for not speaking up when crucial mistakes are made. The recipe for an organization's demise is: one part leader doing a half ass job, add an executive board that functions at the rate that a insignificant bean plant germinates, and a few select members that are too scared to speak their minds when controversial issues are brought up.
The ingredients that were left out are the poor souls that are in these types of organizations that see all the flaws and speak up when a mistake is made. Sadly, they have no hope as they are just brushed off to the side because doing things the right way would mean extra work to correct the mistakes that were made. An organization of this sort would never ever fathom of doing such a thing, admitting that they screwed up and then taking the necessary steps to rectify the error? Now that's too much to ask for.
Many join these clubs and organizations for the reason that they feel the need to fill up the empty spaces in their resumes. Some join because they actually like the club and all that it does for the student body.
But it is those students, who take the sometimes scary steps up to the plate, that actually care. And I mean determined individuals that are wholeheartedly on board for seeing the organization improve and succeed. For many student-governed clubs, making big changes happen usually means holding a position with some ability to make and see that improvements are made.
The disheartening part of it all is that there are some individuals in those executive positions that simply don't give a shit about what their organization stands for, nor do they care about doing things the right way or following the written fundamentals in their own constitutions.
It's situations like these where some members may question why certain people hold certain positions. It's also the fault of the members for not speaking up when crucial mistakes are made. The recipe for an organization's demise is: one part leader doing a half ass job, add an executive board that functions at the rate that a insignificant bean plant germinates, and a few select members that are too scared to speak their minds when controversial issues are brought up.
The ingredients that were left out are the poor souls that are in these types of organizations that see all the flaws and speak up when a mistake is made. Sadly, they have no hope as they are just brushed off to the side because doing things the right way would mean extra work to correct the mistakes that were made. An organization of this sort would never ever fathom of doing such a thing, admitting that they screwed up and then taking the necessary steps to rectify the error? Now that's too much to ask for.
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