WHAT IS A TYPICAL DAY LIKE BEING AN ASSISTANT DEAN? THE ASSISTANT DEAN OF FASS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR VINCENT OOI (A/P OOI), LET SANDY SUM AND GERILYNN YEE IN ON THE INSIDE SCOOP OF THE OPERATIONS HE OVERSEES ON A DAILY BASIS AND GIVES US A HEADS UP ON THE MUCH AWAITED UTOWN.

If you have ever wanted to know what it is like overseeing such a huge organization like the Faculty of Arts and Social Science (FASS), your queries have been answered. This issue, Insomniac speaks to A/P Ooi on his job scope as the Assistant Dean of External Relations and Student Life (ERSL) in FASS. As his portfolio includes “Student Life”, A/P Ooi is also the perfect candidate to fill us in on UTown.

Easing into this job was somewhat of a second nature to A/P Ooi who, after obtaining his Masters in NUS, was appointed Senior Tutor in the Department of English Language and Literature. Passion seems to be the key when pursuing higher levels of study: A/P Ooi mentions his pet topic, Language and the Internet, more than once. In 2010, Dean Prof Brenda Yeoh appointed him Assistant Dean.

What kind of work does fostering student life need exactly? It involves approaching the work with a multi-pronged approach, A/P Ooi relates to us. Together with Vice-Dean A/P T.C. Chang, he oversees this portfolio which is, to boost the experiential quality of student life for past, present and future FASS students.

Bet you never knew that the Assistant Dean is involved in many undergraduate clubs and societies in FASS; he engages students to get up and be more active, by having more pursuits other than just studying. This way, students from FASS are able to lead a more vibrant and diverse life.

Part of the job scope of the ERSL team also involves organizing the Dean’s lunch with scholars and Deanery Connect Sessions that allow for more meaningful interactions between the Dean and students like us. he illustrates this as “a two-way process to make university life better.” True to his interest, A/P Ooi also keeps up with time by encouraging the setting up of various social media platforms for some of the evnts organized by the office.

Once you’re an FASS student, you always will be: this idea came through as A/P Ooi presses that the FASS alumni are still very much involved in FASS now. This is linked to “external relations”, which he defines as mainly engaging the alumni. A/P Ooi and his team liaise with and contact the alumni for various events that are beneficial to the FASS as a whole.

He sheds light on the roles these alumni members play, expertly listing them off: as mentors, hosts or speakers giving career talks. The alumni can come back to be a part of the FASS mentorship program or to be hosts to international students in the ‘befrienders’ program, “My FASS family”, and to speak at events such as the “FASStalk-Alumni series”. The ERSL team also handles and maintains relationships with alumni members who feel financially able to help set up scholarships and bursaries for the benfit of current FASS students.

A/P Ooi enthused that positive vibes can be felt in the office with such affirmative goals. Working towards the task of boosting student life has not only affected student life itself, but the team in charge of it as well.

When asked if student life or welfare has changed since his time (A/P Ooi is an FASS graduate), he agrees keenly about how campus facilities and teaching methods have improved, and that “nowadays, students are taught to be more knowledge enterprising”.

One last question for A/P Ooi: When asked what distinguishes an Arts Scholar, he answers with the true sense of a well-learned being. The Arts student focuses on the study of the human being in profound and multi-faceted ways – such as the historical, the social and the psychological aspects – so that we can more fully understand ‘the human condition’.

However, he also emphasizes that multi-disciplinary knowledge is more valued nowadays. “The Arts and Social Sciences scholar who also has business, engineering or other types of knowledge can be more knowledge enterprising and better succeed in society.”

Good piece of advice for us all to take away.

…now, here’s THE PLAN

U Town

With all the recent hype over UTown, how could we resist not asking A/P Ooi about it? Despite the fact that he is not slated to teach at UTown, he remains ever true to his passion for language and linguistics when he admits that, if given the chance, he would love to teach an improvised version of his current module on “Language and the Internet” in UTown. He believes that “topics such as the Language of Facebook, Twitter, MSN, IRC, blogs and the nature of computer-mediated communication will surely be of immediate relevance to our students who are increasingly online 24/7”.

When queried about the drawbacks for the average Arts student not residing at UTown, he adroitly smoothes downs the worries. He pointed out thart though some professors will undertake full-time appointments, they number only 5 and not all of the Professors would be from FASS. Some could also “hold joint appointments with a Department in FASS” and thus still teach at both places.

In response to the possible exclusivity of UTown, he hastens to stress that the UTown is an extension of NUS and that with all the exciting new facilities slated to be built, he feels that all students – even those not residing there – would stand to benefit.

“All facilities are made available to every student”, he says. UTown will feature a Media Hub with state-of-the-art equipment to help students with their projects and assignments, 3 computer clusters (including a dedicated Macintosh cluster), quiet study areas as well as discussion areas for students to do collaborative work. Look forward also to restaurants providing Korean, Italian and Hong Kong fare, a food court, and popular coffee chain Starbucks.

Come 2013, EduSports will be ready. There will be a one-stop student service centre, a leisure pool, a rock climbing wall, a gymnasium, dance and music practice rooms amongst other teaching facilities.

On the monetary aspect, he highlights the fact that “students who reside in the residential colleges pay the same tuition fees, depending on the faculty they are enrolled in” and drawing a comparison between the rates for Hall and UTown ($100/week for Hall, $110/week for UTown) — “the difference is not a lot”, he comments.

For more information about the upcoming UTown scheduled to open its doors in August 2011, go on to http://utown.nus.edu.sg/

Adapted from INSOMNIAC, March 2011

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