Dear Professor Lok...

I am a 2^nd year Aerospace Engineering student going onto 3^rd year, and am currently on the Global Immersion Program in University of Washington, Seattle. Just a little background about myself, I am a member of the school’s IVP badminton team, and have represented Singapore Universities in the Asean University games in Hanoi and the World University games in Bangkok. In my freshman year, I was a proud and enthusiastic resident of Hall 2 who participated in many of its activities including representing the Hall in Inter Hall games, member of the Hall’s Jam band and publications committee and team manager of the Hall’s badminton team. In my sophomore year, after the implementation of the new Hall Allocation System, I was allocated a room in Hall 5 under the IVP scheme. I did not participate in any Hall activities because of my plan to go for exchange. In the recently concluded 1^st round of allocation, under the points scheme in which I have 13 points, I did not manage to secure a place in hall. I am writing this email not because I am desperate for a hall place and hope that in my actions I could get a place, but I am writing this email in sadness and in a hope for a better change of the constantly changing hall allocation system.

One might ask why as an IVP player I would apply for hall under the points scheme rather than the sports scheme in which case the sportsman, due to his heavy training schedule which main purpose is to bring glory to the school, would be guaranteed a place in hall? Because I believe that every individual has a choice, a choice to choose which hall he would or would not like to stay in. Personally, I was a product of the random allocation of IVP sportsmen done by a machine which uses algorithms to make decisions. Cold as it seems, the crushing moment of losing all identity that has been forged with the hall I call home for 1 year is even colder. An identity that has been lost forever and the cause even forged disbelief and hate with the new guidelines for the recommendation lists for halls this new academic year.

“Only returning residents are allowed to be on the recommendation lists for each hall”, and so I have heard. Why is it that this rule is in place? Why does the Hall Allocation system wants to put its foot into every hole it can find? Again, personally it prevents people like me on foreign exchange to be on the recommendation list. One who dislikes his previous hall’s culture is also deterred from applying to other halls, assuming that he does not make the 1^st cut off and has to try to get a spot in the recommendation lists of halls which may appreciate his ability to contribute to the hall. Furthermore, there are others who haven’t stayed in hall previously, but because of a position they chose to undertake, staying in hall seems necessary due to time commitment required to perform their duties. The JCRC has certain roles and responsibilities. Let them fulfill what they have been formed to do.

There are yet another group of people who are valuable to the culture in hall, who have contributed in so many small little ways, but have not received any recognition in their abilities and their hard work. These people are not the leaders of school, they are not the presidents of clubs, nor are they IVP sportsmen who have the option of choosing to apply under the sports scheme. They are the building blocks of NTU’s hall culture, the people who are always there when their leaders need them. They are the people who take up many small appointments to be involved in hall in many different ways, albeit not big and prestigious ways. Because of the new Hall Allocation system, people who take part in many activities are not rewarded due to the fact that campus life points are not accumulative. The system has inadvertently flushed out students working silently behind the scenes and they will eventually fade away from hall, disappointed. If Presidents of school clubs get rewarded in terms of points for their time commitment to the school, I do not see why these students in their small little ways accumulatively should not be rewarded for their time commitment, which may even surpass that of the President of a school club. As the saying goes, “Without good men, there can never be good leaders.” Without these students, the President cannot run his club.

Although Singapore is a small island city state, distance still matters with respect to time spend travelling to school. NTU is inconveniently located in the extreme west side of the island. Hence, students who live on the other side of the island have to take at least 2 hours to travel to school. The weightage of points for distance under the Hall Allocation System is half, with the maximum points being 9, the same as the maximum one could get for campus life involvement. This brings up the issue of whether the weightage for distance is actually a fair one, because it automatically puts Singaporean students at a disadvantage over foreign students. Given that this year’s cut off points for hall is 15, and making a general assumption that the points allocated for distance is 4.5 at an imaginary north south running line that is drawn cutting the island into approximately half, and also assuming that the distribution of NTU students is uniform throughout the island, that automatically makes half of NTU’s student population ineligible for a hall place. Even if they have 9 points for campus life involvement, their maximum number of points that is available to them is still less than 15. Hence, like my friend once said, “This system is ostracizing the locals.” Perhaps a system that is fairer is one where the weightage on activities is higher and that of distance is lower. Moreover, foreign students come here to experience local culture in hall, not their own. We would not want foreign students to crowd out our halls.

There is a rising demand for campus accommodation, and coupled with the fact that freshmen are guaranteed a place in hall for their 1^st year, this rising demand justifies the seemingly impossible cut off point of 15 for the normal person. Moreover, there is a possibility that double sharing rooms may make way for triple sharing ones. Putting three students in one room may solve NTU’s problems of rising demands in campus accommodation, but it will only be short term as there is only this much we can expand with a limited amount of resources. In the long term, more halls could be built, be it inside or near campus to meet this rising demand. Furthermore, the school could build their own off-campus accommodation instead of relying on individual landlords to come forward to provide a more steady supply of off campus accommodation for students who desperately need to stay near the area at a cheaper rate but are unable to secure a place in hall.

Good systems must be in place to ensure that culture develops and flourish. However a system that has a tight control does not develop culture, in fact it will stifle and ruin the present culture. The spreading out of IVP players in hall might ruin sporting culture in a hall, by not giving the players a choice to go to a hall of their choice. As students of NTU, we want to graduate and remember the days of our hall lives, and remember that Hall X was a powerhouse in a certain sport; Hall Y had the best jam band amongst all the halls, and Hall Z……

I believe I echo the voices of many students, students who as you are reading this email, are spending their time making preparations for Freshman Orientation Camp, training for competitions, but at the same time worrying about whether they can get a hall through the recommendation list or the 2^nd round. As much as I think this email will go unnoticed, just like the many cries of the students who did not get hall, I would hope to believe that there can be some compassion in the system, a system that will not destroy hall culture, but one that hall culture can actually thrive and nourish in.

Yours Sincerely,
Hamon Shen