I am in a
Poetry/Spoken Word RSO and the main source of conflict comes from member attendance,
or lack thereof. Every semester, we have a concert, and there are limited
amounts of slots for pieces. Simply put, a piece is a poem read theatrically. The
name of the RSO is WORD, and we normally meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from
8PM-10PM at the SDRP. The organizational structure contains an executive board
with ascending power levels, with a Historian, FundRaising Chair, Publicity
Chair, Secretary, Vice President, President. I do not know all the responsibilities
of each responsibilities; general members have a lot of power in some
situations and less in others. For examples, general members have no power over
the workshops or writing technique practices that we explore when we meet. The
themes for our concert are usually thought of by the e-board, and they give
four or five options which the general body gets to elect democratically, where
everyone has equal voting power. The only time that the eboard has more voting
power than general members is when voting for the next eboard, and their votes
each count as two general member votes. From the stance of a general member,
the structure of WORD is hierarchal, but flat.
Concerts for WORD
are popular, and the crowd varies between 200 and 250 people, and they normally
take place about a month before finals, and concert prep usually starts about a
month before. For some people, this does not interfere with schoolwork, but
when taking higher credit loads or difficult classes. Committing 4 hours a
week, not including time spent writing or memorizing the piece for rehearsal
and transporting to and from the meeting place, is a feat. Members of WORD do
not need to perform or be in the concert, but most do by choice. Most pieces
are performed in groups that require coordination, which is what the Tuesday
and Thursday meetings are for. Hence, it can be difficult to make progress when
there is at least one group member who is unable to make it to meetings.
Early in the
semester when it’s warm, school has a new car smell; it’s fun and exciting, but
after riding through the school year, you realize some of the parts of your
ride break down. Instead of taking the time to study, students procrastinate
and don’t perform well. This happens to seasoned students, but this especially
happens to students new to college who do not know what to expect, as far as
their workloads. Often in WORD, new members are ambitious and to participate,
not knowing how much of a time commitment they are signing up for. This results
in people being upset toward each other for not being at rehearsal at the
allotted time.
WORD breeds a lot
of friendships, and this makes it difficult for people to bring up something
that bothers them. People don’t want to call out their friends for not being
there, which can make the problem worse. Early in the preparation process this isn’t
much of a problem, people can exchange team members in and out, but this is not
easy because concerts prep must begin close enough to the concert so people can
write their pieces, but far away enough so that people can memorize what they
have. Also, if the concert is too close to finals, everyone is worse off.
This problem is
not completely resolved. However, all people who participate in the concert
must sign a contract saying that they cannot miss more than X number of
meetings without being at risk of having their part cut out of the concert. In
theory, this sounds efficient, but this does not account for excused absences,
if those should even exist. Normally, when the member communicates that they
have something important that they need to attend, the absence is excused. From
my experience, this hasn’t been abused, but there is no explicit barrier
against it. As discussed in class, it seems the best way to fix this problem is
before it occurs, and the intuitive way to do so is contracting. However, there
is no third-party that can effectively evaluate the situation and be fair.
Can you propose another solution to this conflict? I think personally that (if you don't do this already) having people try out for each spoken word performance and then immediately dropping them if they miss one of the most important meetings would help. I don't think people should be dropped if they miss one practice early on in the semester, but toward the end when the practices are vital to success in performance, people should be dropped quickly. I understand that this does not have much power, because people who can't make it to the meetings later on might decide to just quit.
ReplyDeleteAnother possible solution is to have more than the required amount of participants in each act. If you have backup people or substitutes, then the group can still practice if one or two people miss. The people who miss will have to practice their parts on their own, but at least this way the team as a whole is always able to get practice in.
I think your description of voting power is unnecessary to the story you told about the conflict. Could you tie it in more somehow?
I think you did a really good job describing the nuances of the conflict, such as the fact that friends wouldn't want to call each other out on missing practice and the fact that people over-commit themselves early in the semester. These problems seem universal in college RSOs, and I've experienced them many times. I've been on both ends of the issue - over-committing myself and then not being able to follow through, and also feeling annoyed when not enough people show up to meetings for a group I am dedicated to.
What is SDRP? Perhaps I should know that, but I don't.
ReplyDeleteI would call your essay a step or two removed from describing conflict. You talked about some of the pre-conditions and the issue of missing meetings. (On this you might have added something about wanting to recruit new members each year and that, perhaps, being in tension with giving first year students a realistic view of the time involved.) You didn't really talk t all about how his plays out between particular individuals.
One thing that would have helped in writing this if to describe your own perspective. Have you had a position as an officer in the organization? If so, are there disagreements among the officers themselves about how to manage this issue? Alternatively, if you are a general member, are there disagreement among them for similar reasons?
Disagreements that persist can turn into conflict. In this case it might help to envision competing solutions to these issue and the conflict arising because different people care a lot and have different preferences about their preferred solution. If some of that is going on, it would help to include it in your story.
I think you described the problems your RSO is facing, and these problems might foster conflicts. But you didn’t really write whether there is a real conflict happening. Actually, I think that even if these problems are present and people are unsatisfied, I don’t think conflict will really evolve. Yes, people might feel annoyed that their peers are not coming to meetings, but these feelings are not strong enough for a conflict to erupt. I believe most people will remain quite if it doesn’t bother them that much. If low attendance affects their benefits and interests, a conflict might happen. So an important information that would be helpful to know this is the nature of the concert you mentioned. I gather that the concert is quite popular, but other information about the concert would be helpful. Is it for profit? Does the RSO earn ticket profit from the concert? Or is it just for fun? Are there awards or recognitions for the concert? Do groups that perform well get rewarded? I think these would be important information to answer the question that whether conflict is likely to erupt or not. Effective solutions for the problem and also effective ways to avoid it before it occurs would also be based on these questions.
ReplyDeleteThe SDRP is the Student Dining and Residential Programs building, best known as the Ike on 301 E. Gregory. I never held a position in this org as an officer, but I am closer to the eboard than most members. There are disagreements between officers, but they normally come to quicker, better decisions among themselves. General members take longer to make decisions since there are so many differences in opinion. The goal often becomes finding the lowest common denominator in all of their ideas, which is sometimes helpful.
ReplyDelete