An Open Response

So last night fellow Tembusian, Cedric, posted an open letter to the upcoming CSC. The letter was an expression of concern that the college is losing focus, or its essence of what it was meant to be: a place of intellectual learning. It then encouraged the current candidature for CSC to consider how they, as future student leaders, can set the college back on track.

That, as well as the discussion that ensued its posting on facebook, really caught my interest for one reason: that there are others like me who are frustrated about the way the college is being run. (Thank goodness!)

It's interesting how differently everyone conceptualized the issue. Cedric made a case of "intellectual" type of events increasingly losing out to "rah-rah" ones. He also made a point of how Tembusu is starting to resemble a hall of residence.

One commenter raised a counter concern that too much "intellectual talk" and no action might make Tembusu elitist and generally inconsequential to the real world.

She, and a few others, also expanded on the notion of "multiple intelligences/ intellectualness", emphasizing that it is the learning aspect of the college that we should be worried about, and not the form of learning that should take place.

I, on the other hand, have argued that it's the scale of events that have fallen out of proportion.

In essence, I think all of us fundamentally agree two main points. The first being the college should be a place of learning (be it "intellectual" or simply non-academic). This means we believe that the events and activities we create in Tembusu ought to prioritize some aspect of learning. The second, is that there are not enough of such.

This much we agree on. I wish Cedric had provided a clearer suggestion on what he thinks the next CSC can do to 'fix' this general lack of "intellectual life" in Tembusu though. More thoughts on this tomorrow. Good night.