Wednesday, August 20, 2003
198 A time for peace, I swear it's not too late...
I can’t help but feel envious toward Malaysian students’ association in other universities such as in University of Minnesota in Minneapolis for their professionalism in organizational matters, or as matter of fact, in many other students’ societies in Michigan.
The Malaysian students’ association here couldn’t even be considered a proper organization. It is not even registered under Michigan Students' Association. In fact, I don’t consider it as useful to me right now. It has outlived its usefulness. The only organization that I really enjoy being in is the Solar Car Team.
Perhaps I should praise the Malaysian Students’ Association or the sassier acronym, UMIMSA for organizing Malaysia Week. Nevertheless, I don’t really call it as a success as majority of the event visitors were Malaysians. The event was held in order to introduce Malaysia to foreigners but I dare bet that Malaysia receives more publicity from terrorism to Malaysia Week.
By criticizing it, I am not saying UMIMSA is useless at all, though currently, sadly it seems exactly that. UMIMSA does have a role. All I am saying is that the organization should be more proactive for its members. By proactive, it includes professionalism. If all UMIMSA does are luncheons and dinners, then UMIMSA has no right to collect membership fee. Having to pay USD 20 just for chicken wings, turkey or fried rice is outrageous.
However, I am glad seeing UMIMSA at least organized something though with UMIMSA’s size, much is left to be desired.
Why do I say no professionalism? First of all, time management. Never have I seen anything that was organized by UMIMSA was punctual to the minute, or should I say, to the hour. Secondly, nothing that is going to be done was told in advance with sufficient amount of time. Even the Malaysian Week for example, was made public to its members barely two or three weeks earlier. As a result, as I saw it, the preparation was substandard. Thirdly, everything was passed through my mouth, no paper work, no nothing. Not even a proper report. To some extend, the attitude of the committee members are amazingly irresponsible. A clear example was during the Michigan convoy preparation for the 2002 Midwest Games. A supposedly-not-to-have-happened mistake had cost the convoy members more money than it supposed to be. The post-mortem – nothing, not even a decent apology.
Sometimes, even the activities that were planned during its first committee members meeting was not carried out. This situation happened last year when I was a member of the committee. This year however, beside the Malaysia Week, I saw no other activities at all (eating is not an activity). There are only two possibilities to explain this – one, as I have said earlier and two, nothing was planned. This year, even the skiing tradition was not carried out.
UMIMSA’s incompetence has resulted in its members to organize events on their own. On one instant, most Malaysians’ class of 2005 went ice skating in Yost Ice Arena on their own, bypassing the association. It was not just the class of 2005. Even the class of 2006 had organized a barbeque on their own, without any help from UMIMSA. Even now, the freshmen are planning to organize Malaysia Day inline with the upcoming Malaysia’s Independence Day and a paintball trip somewhere in the near future, again bypassing UMIMSA.
Perhaps UMIMSA might be able to redeem itself in my eyes when the new freshmen reach Detroit on this August 22nd. Yet, skeptically, I think only a handful of persons will fetch the freshmen out of pity rather than in UMIMSA’s name.
UMIMSA needs to do something for its own sake because each time it does not do anything, the more people are going to do things on their own and slowly if not immediately sidelining UMIMSA for good. As long as UMIMSA continues as it is right now, I will not feel the urge to actively engage in it as I had and planning to in the Solar Car Team.
I can’t help but feel envious toward Malaysian students’ association in other universities such as in University of Minnesota in Minneapolis for their professionalism in organizational matters, or as matter of fact, in many other students’ societies in Michigan.
The Malaysian students’ association here couldn’t even be considered a proper organization. It is not even registered under Michigan Students' Association. In fact, I don’t consider it as useful to me right now. It has outlived its usefulness. The only organization that I really enjoy being in is the Solar Car Team.
Perhaps I should praise the Malaysian Students’ Association or the sassier acronym, UMIMSA for organizing Malaysia Week. Nevertheless, I don’t really call it as a success as majority of the event visitors were Malaysians. The event was held in order to introduce Malaysia to foreigners but I dare bet that Malaysia receives more publicity from terrorism to Malaysia Week.
By criticizing it, I am not saying UMIMSA is useless at all, though currently, sadly it seems exactly that. UMIMSA does have a role. All I am saying is that the organization should be more proactive for its members. By proactive, it includes professionalism. If all UMIMSA does are luncheons and dinners, then UMIMSA has no right to collect membership fee. Having to pay USD 20 just for chicken wings, turkey or fried rice is outrageous.
However, I am glad seeing UMIMSA at least organized something though with UMIMSA’s size, much is left to be desired.
Why do I say no professionalism? First of all, time management. Never have I seen anything that was organized by UMIMSA was punctual to the minute, or should I say, to the hour. Secondly, nothing that is going to be done was told in advance with sufficient amount of time. Even the Malaysian Week for example, was made public to its members barely two or three weeks earlier. As a result, as I saw it, the preparation was substandard. Thirdly, everything was passed through my mouth, no paper work, no nothing. Not even a proper report. To some extend, the attitude of the committee members are amazingly irresponsible. A clear example was during the Michigan convoy preparation for the 2002 Midwest Games. A supposedly-not-to-have-happened mistake had cost the convoy members more money than it supposed to be. The post-mortem – nothing, not even a decent apology.
Sometimes, even the activities that were planned during its first committee members meeting was not carried out. This situation happened last year when I was a member of the committee. This year however, beside the Malaysia Week, I saw no other activities at all (eating is not an activity). There are only two possibilities to explain this – one, as I have said earlier and two, nothing was planned. This year, even the skiing tradition was not carried out.
UMIMSA’s incompetence has resulted in its members to organize events on their own. On one instant, most Malaysians’ class of 2005 went ice skating in Yost Ice Arena on their own, bypassing the association. It was not just the class of 2005. Even the class of 2006 had organized a barbeque on their own, without any help from UMIMSA. Even now, the freshmen are planning to organize Malaysia Day inline with the upcoming Malaysia’s Independence Day and a paintball trip somewhere in the near future, again bypassing UMIMSA.
Perhaps UMIMSA might be able to redeem itself in my eyes when the new freshmen reach Detroit on this August 22nd. Yet, skeptically, I think only a handful of persons will fetch the freshmen out of pity rather than in UMIMSA’s name.
UMIMSA needs to do something for its own sake because each time it does not do anything, the more people are going to do things on their own and slowly if not immediately sidelining UMIMSA for good. As long as UMIMSA continues as it is right now, I will not feel the urge to actively engage in it as I had and planning to in the Solar Car Team.
