U-High’s competitive nonathletic teams, also called Tier 3 clubs, are being asked to clarify and refine their constitutions to ensure fair treatment in leadership selection. The effort was spearheaded by Dean of Students Ana Campos in an effort to make the process of club leadership selection transparent and clear for members. The initiative was supported by the clubs committee, and executed by club leaders and faculty advisers with Ms. Campos’ support.
“My interest in standardizing is not that everyone has to operate the same way,” Ms. Campos said, “but that there have to be some basic principles that should exist so that people can trust the process of club leadership and club selection and how a club operates.”
Each Tier 3 club has a different model for leadership selection. Some examples include Model United Nations, whose leaders are selected through an election, and robotics, which has introduced a rubric along with interviews and essays. The rubric is used to evaluate candidates’ interactions with the team, leadership and skill. The rubric model is strongly supported by Ms. Campos to maintain transparency.
“ It’s kind of like when all of you are working on an assignment for class,” Ms. Campos said. “Most of the time, teachers are gonna tell you, ‘These are the required aspects of this assignment, and if you meet or exceed all of these parts, you’re gonna get a decent grade.’ Same with a rubric, right? Like if you are meeting or exceeding all of the types of qualities and experiences that someone should have to lead a club, that should count for something.”
Per the new policy for the robotics team, each candidate for coordinator receives a rubric detailing both areas of strength and for future growth, regardless of whether they are offered the coordinator position.
Robotics senior coordinator Lucia Dumitrescu supports this shift.
“ I personally really like it ’cause it makes things very linear. It’s very, ‘You get it, you don’t,’ but then you also get advice, which is really nice,” Lucia said. “Even though I got selected as a senior coordinator, there are obviously still things I can work on, and getting that slip and seeing what I can do actually helps me a lot ’cause I’m like, ‘OK, now I need to know what to bring into the next year.’”
Another push toward standardization came from outside the clubs themselves. Ms. Campos has heard concerns from parents and students about why certain students didn’t receive a leadership position in a club. A rubric helps address that conflict by making expectations clear, Ms. Campos said.
Robotics was not immune to that kind of tension before the changes, Lucia said.
“ There was a lot of feelings of upset because these were definitely very deserving people who had worked so hard for the team and been such vital members,” Lucia said, “and I don’t think they ever really got to know why they weren’t put in a coordinator position. So I definitely feel bad for them because it was never very clarified why they didn’t get the position and someone else got it over them, which is why I like this system more.”
For Model United Nations, its constitution has been undergoing revisions for some time, with input from faculty advisers, club members, club leaders and Ms. Campos.
Junior Austen Wu, recently selected as secretary-general of crisis, said the goal of the changes is similar to robotics: to maintain transparency.
Ms. Campos is eager to follow up with club leaders next year about the effect of these changes.
“It’s always about trying to improve the experience,” Ms. Campos said, “and it’s not about creating hoops and steps, but it is about creating an experience that is predictable.”
