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The Office of Stu-dent Life (OSL) is moving to revamp

some aspects of how they handle CCAs and Student Life. Students on the Exco of SMUSA and the Student Constituent Bodies (CBDs) have be-gun undertaking a series of leadership modules to complement their roles as student leaders. Currently the modules being offered as part of this initiative are Risk Assessment, Facilitation and Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). Other modules such as Presentation and Writing skills may eventually be offered as well. Mr. Wong Yew Tong, the As-sistant Director for Safety and Student Leadership, says that this new cur-riculum is part of a “student leadership roadmap” that aims to complement and value-add to students who hold leadership positions. As of now, about 170 student leaders are enrolled in this course. The hope is that with these skills, student leaders can better reach out to the rest of the student body and influence their peers to engage more in non-academic activities. Yew Tong noted that most of the current batch of students have great GPAs, but when they go out there, that well-roundedness is missing. “They are able to talk and present themselves very well, but when it comes to people-to-people interaction, things that you learn when you take part in CCAs, that

life skill is miss-ing.” By giving them some-thing more of life skills, as opposed to just a formal educa-tion, Yew Tong says that OSL wants “to pro-vide them with the other side of the report card. GPAs and classes is what you get on a report card, and

this is the other side that will comple-ment our students. Hopefully, when they graduate, they will bring this life skill with them and this will empower them to be confident, be aware of themselves and create a name for SMU students.” By raising awareness about the various leadership roles open to students, and offering these new mod-ules for student leaders, the hope is that more students will find it worth their time to serve their peers, and that they will step up and become active student leaders themselves.

OSL’s Safety CentreOSL has also started up a Safety Centre to oversee all student-organized activi-ties. The centre will continually review the safety protocols of all school and CCA events, and will advise student organizers on areas to look into and safety measures to put in place. This is to ensure that everyone is safe at

these types of events. In addition, the Centre will regularly check up on CCA trainings to ensure that safety is a top priority at all times.

A new way of managing CCA RecordsOSL will also be moving to a new system for managing student CCA records. User testing for the Student Life Management System (SLiMS) began this year, with students and staff provid-ing feedback to refine the new system. The targeted rollout date is 1st January 2011, and when implemented, all CCA records will be entered into the new system. “If you have spent a lot of time contributing to student life, it must do something for you, it must help you. SMU recognizes this, so the SLiMS will be able to churn out a CCA report that is very professionally done. It acts to support [your academic transcript] when you go out and present your-selves to employers.”

The (potential) future of Student LeadershipYew Tong hopes that there will be more non-academic involvement from stu-dents, and that students are given the life skills to plan and manage their own activities, while always keeping safety in mind. Ultimately, the aim of these new initiatives is to further enhance the process that allows student groups to be self-running and self-governing bodies. “I guess that’s the part where we need to be more open to changes, open to new ideas and new ways of doing things. That’s how we will move forward.”