Weck’s World

Beginning next school year, the Office of Student Organizations under Amanda Spell will rate social clubs based on a “Five Star Rating System,” one that will be published in the pledging handbooks for prospective pledges in the fall.

Unfortunately, the effort to provide insight for these could-be pledges just comes as yet another nitpicky blunder for the S.O. office in the avenue of social clubs.

The Five Star Rating System, in which each club will be assessed by the Office of Student Organizations, the Volunteer and Service-Learning Center and the Leadership Development Office, is determined based on how it: 1) Honors Institutional Mission; 2) Honors of own Organizational Mission; 3) Academic Excellence; 4) Exemplary Practices and 5) Exceptional Leadership. If the club is satisfactory in each of these categories it is awarded five stars, but if it is lacking in any category, it loses that particular star.

These ratings, recently released to each social club, are laden with problems.

First, the system is a great idea-if it is revealed solely to social clubs. It gives each club a chance to assess where it stands and what it needs to improve upon. Constructive criticism is great; it just doesn’t need to be broadcast to every sophomore next fall. If the prospectives know little about a specific club, anything less than a perfect score will just give them a negative and perhaps skewed perception to start with. When you look at movie ratings, how often do you check to see what each star is given for? You don’t; you just assume that good is good, bad is bad. In other words, an outsider could falsely assume that a four-star club has more alcohol drinking in it than a five-star club, when the issue might be about grade-point average or a missed meeting with Spell.

Secondly, the system bases ratings on the actions of clubs last year. In this sense, the previous year’s club officers and (by then) graduated seniors will be judged; a factor that has no bearing on the current year. So if a club was in poor financial standing in 2002, it will be revealed in the number of stars given in 2003, even if the club has corrected the problem.

Another problem is this: Students should decide to pledge a social club based on their own standards, not the school’s. If you rush a club you really like and fit in with that particular group of guys or girls, then you should pledge that club. You shouldn’t discount a club that you enjoy just because a handbook says it didn’t “make measurable progress toward goals” or didn’t have “timely processes and procedures.”

As a former social club officer, I realize that it is difficult enough to comply with the S.O. office’s every request; now it appears this most recent wrench will do more harm to clubs than it will help to prospective pledges.

I’ve had enough; the tables shall turn. In the self-made handbook I plan on printing next year for all prospective pledges, the Office of Student Organizations starts off with “Probationary,” or one-star, status.