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New SUSA point system will reward active clubs

By Linda Poon

On April 15, 2011

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After the new club point system was implemented early this semester, some smaller student organizations under the Smith Undergraduate Student Association (SUSA) voice concerns about the disadvantages and see room for improvement.

Starting next fall, the business school will began holding more night classes and that means limited rooms and times available for organizations to hold their events. To accommodate the change, SUSA has begun prioritizing organizations based on the number of points they earn through attending SUSA meetings, holding events and collaborating with sponsors and other clubs.

The more active a club is, the better chance it has of getting the meeting time they want.

"We've been pretty happy with the way it's going," said Pratik Dixit, who serves as SUSA's vice president of administration. "We think it accurately reflects which organizations are doing a lot."

But for smaller organizations like the Smith School Women's Society, earning these points has come as a bit of a challenge because of their size and frequency of events.

"Because we only have events every other week, going against bigger events and groups that meet every week is difficult," said their president, Emily Pearson, who also added that she would like to see SUSA take that into consideration as they continue to improve upon their program.

Yevheniya Kuchyk, the president of Society of Green Business – a group that has a little over 30 members – also shared similar concerns.

"While some larger clubs have speakers come in almost every week and receive lots of points every month, it is harder for smaller clubs to have the same number," she said.

Dixit said that the board has taken the size into account when using the point system. His best advice to them is to take the opportunity to partner with other clubs or even SUSA, which can earn them significant amount of points while increasing interaction among one another.

Kuchyk, however, remains worried.

"Sure, we can try to win a SUSA competition, or try to partner with them, but larger clubs do that too," she said.

When Supply Chain Management Society's president, Dallas Schroeder, first learned of the system, he, like other presidents, also felt uneasy. "I was uneasy about it because I think there are more than 20 SUSA clubs...." he said. "If we get stuck with an event on Wednesday at 9pm, no one, including the sponsors, will come out and the club won't exist anymore."

But as the semester continued, Schroeder recognized that SUSA has come up with the right kind of system but would like to see one thing changed. "I would say holding signature event is the hardest thing to do to earn points," he said. "Our signature event takes 6 months to plan and for only four points seems very low to me."

"I think SUSA just needs to stay open with being able to change; they thought out a stable system but is not completely hole-less," Schroeder said.