Hello there everyone and welcome back to MUSA Did What 2022, featuring your all new Head Writer aka… me, Ashley. As I take charge of this running series of articles spilling all the MUSA tea, here is my solemn vow to you dear readers:
“I vow to report the truth and nothing but the truth, to remain unbiased in all articles, deliver a few “behind the scenes” peeks about upcoming events and of course to ensure that you, the student community receives the hottest, spiciest gossip about all things MUSA” 👀
Now, let’s get into it shall we?
Campus Life? Campus Life!!
It’s finally here…the moment we’ve all been waiting for: going back to campus!!🥳 If you’ve been regularly checking your e-mails (especially for international students), Monash has announced that they will be implementing a hybrid semester with some physical and virtual classes. For freshies, your Orientation Week will begin on the 21st of February lasting throughout the week right up till the 25th.
For some of our seniors (such as myself) who have hardly been on campus, here’s some good news! There will be a bunch of campus tours and activities organized by the various schools as well as our very own Activities department that will take place well into the first week of the semester (following strict SOPs of course). Yes, I know it’s for freshies but I guess we can tag along in the background so we don’t get lost right? 🤓
P.S: I heard Editors are having a photobooth there on the 24th too… and they’re going to be distributing magazines for free… hmmm…well you can always drop by and check it out yourself 😉
Of Appointing DROs and Avoiding a Constitutional Crisis
According to Dominic, our President we made history as the first MSC to run for under 3 hours for the first time in half a decade, a feat which I, especially, am incredibly grateful for. Shoutout to Brandon our General Secretary who introduced “Highlights” to our Business Reports templates speeding the process up by 1.5x 🤩
However, our General Secretary had a rough night which culminated in repeal of Motion #9 and Motion #10 into an emergency motion (Motion #11)😩. Most of you are probably wondering what I’m going on about so let me try and summarize it as best as I can.
Motion #9 and #10 of the first MSC were to discuss and vote for our Deputy Returning Officers (DROs). Our candidates nominated for this were:
- Jane Chong from Taylor’s University
- Shawn Phun, who is currently taking a gap year.
What are DROs you ask? Well, they are the ones that under the General Secretary’s leadership who facilitate and conduct the MUSA 2022 By-Election which will be taking place once semester begins in order to officially appoint our School of Business male and female representatives, with the positions currently being held by Nathalia Samuel and Shaun Mathias.
Both candidates proceeded to present their portfolios and went through a short Q&A session, starting with Jane who was unanimously voted in by the council members as our first DRO.
However, once we got to Shawn things started to get a bit dicey. Just as the voting was about to commence, things came to a grinding halt when someone pointed out that we were about to land ourselves into a constitutional crisis 👀
*DRAMATIC MUSIC ENSUES
You dear reader, are probably thinking, “Eh, what’s wrong with electing both of them? How does it go against the constitution?” Well, this is why:
This basically explains that from the two DROs the following conditions must be met:
- Both candidates must not be running in the election itself
- One must be a student of Monash University Malaysia
- One must not be a student of Monash University Malaysia
Therefore, if we had proceeded with appointing Shawn as our second DRO we would have gotten ourselves into quite a bit of trouble 🥶
Fortunately, our President quickly swooped in and suggested that we repeal Motion #9, which was the election and appointment of Jane as our first DRO, and propose an emergency motion which would combine the contents of Motion #9 and #10 into Motion #11 to ensure fair competition between both candidates.
I know… I had trouble keeping up too…
All in all, after much confusion, chaos and consideration, a final voting session was held for Office Bearers to choose between Shawn and Jane as our non-Monash DRO. After several rounds of discussion and a tied vote of 8 vs 8, our President once again had to step in to become the tie-breaker.
FINALLY, with his last vote taken into account, Jane was appointed as our first DRO for the MUSA 2022 By-Election. Our second Monash-DRO will be elected and appointed through an e-mail motion that will be sent out soon.
P.S.: This took up about an hour of MSC itself, and we hadn’t even gotten into our division reports yet. *Heavy sigh*
Merch Madness!!
For freshies and all the students who are coming back to campus for what will (hopefully) be a physical semester for most of us, the Vice President’s Department has some great merchandise to get you into the school spirit! Their first batch of merch offerings will consist of a cloth mask (gotta stay safe guys) and of course a T-shirt because, come on it’s Malaysia. This batch is expected to begin selling REAL soon so keep your eyes peeled for that! 🤩
For hoodie enthusiasts (such as myself), don’t fret because the VP department still has plans on providing those. However, this year they decided to have a “Merchandise Hoodie Contest” for all Monashians to participate in! Students will be able to send in their proposed hoodie designs and the best will then be chosen through a selection process! So, all designers out there, it’s your time to shine and who knows… you might be able to see your handiwork walking through the halls of our university. 😉
Gen Sec Again? Eh?
You guys really thought we were done with when it came to our General Secretary huh. (Sorry Brandon 🥺 )
Unfortunately, we hit another bump in the road when it came to the naming of our sub-committee development program. Once again, some of you are probably thinking:
“Huh? Sub-comm development programme? You mean sub-comm recruitment is it?”
If you’ve been stalking @musa.officialpage, you would have noticed that a few weeks ago, before our “formal” recruitment process, MUSA launched something known as the “Subcommittee Development Program (SDP)”. For those who are unclear, this is what I’m talking about.
Initially, this program was named and uploaded as the “Subcommittee Internship Program (SIP)”, and the word “Internship” immediately roused much confusion among the student committee and the Honorary Advisory Committee (HAC). The word itself led to A LOT of misunderstandings because of its traditional usage in the working world. Some were asking:
“Do I get a certificate after this?” “Do I just become a sub-comm for three months and then get evaluated?” “Do I get paid?” 🧐
After a long and intense discussion, the solution was to: archive the original post and replace it with a rebranded poster as well as launch a Q&A session that would help make things clearer to the student body.
Okay, NOW I’m done with ragging on the Gensec. Please don’t give me a warning letter Brandon :) Also guys please send him a comforting DM, mans was STRESSED.
Welfare of the Monash Chinese Student Community
Okay, here’s my final tidbit for you guys.
Recently a letter was emailed to all Office Bearers from the Chinese Student Community of Monash. It detailed the difficulty in returning back to campus to resume physical classes and petitioned for them to be able to resume their online learning given their travel restrictions.
An urgent meeting was held on the 18th of January with the Chinese student representatives to get a better grasp of the situation, so that MUSA could draft an email to our Pro Vice Chancellor (PVC) regarding this situation and hopefully ease the burden of the Chinese Student Community.
Summing up MSC #1 in five concise points would be:
- OMG WHY ARE WE IN CRISIS
- OMG WE GET TO GO BACK TO CAMPUS
- MERCH 🤩
- SDP? SIP? HEH?
- *fingers crossed that our fellow Monashians in China will be able to sort things out
And that concludes our very first MUSA Did What of 2022. Phew, if you’re still reading till the end, you guys get a warm virtual hug from me, thank you for your time :’) If the rest of the MSCs are as eventful as this one, then our dear readers will definitely be able to look forward to much more entertaining news reporting from us here at MONGA! 🤗
Article by Ashley Lim & Header by Chai Ting
musamonga.com 