Blog Post 2
On campus I am apart of two student organizations, Tamid and Student Advocacy Coalition, due to the different functions of these organizations they have slightly varried organizational structures comparatively. The Student Advocacy Coalition is a slightly unique as a student organization, because the club works directly with University Alumni Association employees. At the top of the hierarchal organizational structure would be the Alumni Association faculty members who are the sponsors of the organization, and help link our organization with the Alumni Association. Directly below the Alumni Association, in the hierarchal origination structure, would be the executive board members of the organization. The Student Advocacy Coalition usually has between 5-7 executive members depending on the year. There are various positions on the executive board, and at the top of the hierarchal organization of the just the executive board of this organization, would be the president who works most closely with the Alumni Association faculty and the other various positions on the executive board work under and to report to the president. Tamid as an organization at the University of Illinois is structured differently. The Tamid chapter on the University of Illinois campus is connected to and associated with a larger brand of Tamid. Tamid is a business and consulting organization that is present on college campuses throughout the country, what makes the organization unique is its focus on Israeli economy, as well as its relationship with the United States and the rest of the world. The Tamid at The University of Illinois is accredited though the larger Tamid organization. This makes the organizational structure of the organization different, as the leaders of the group get their information from a more “corporate” like version of Tamid which sends out various lessons and actives for Tamid chapters at various campuses, it is then the individual school’s groups responsibility to ensure that they are commenting with the national Tamid association to ensure they are fulfilling the requirements as set by the national organization. The communication between the national association and the campus group is with the executive board members of the campus Tamid group who then disperse this information to Tamid group on campus more broadly.
This past Spring, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Amsterdam for the semester. While this was an amazing experience, there were several transaction costs that occurred prior to my departure and acceptance to the program. In order for me to be able to apply to the program I spent a great deal of time researching the program, as well as the various costs that would occur as apart of studying aboard. The time I spent doing this preparation and research prior to choosing and applying to the Amsterdam program would be an example of a time I experienced a transaction cost as a student. I would say that I experience transaction costs frequently with my social relationships. When talking to my friends we often spend time explaining to each other what something is before we're able to all collectively discuss a topic together. The time is takes to ensure that people know what something is before you're able to talk about it would be apart of the transaction cost of the conversations I have with my friends.
You appear to be the first one in the class to write about your experience in organizations. I applaud you getting out in front like that. It definitely makes it easier for me when the posts come in early.
ReplyDeleteAs your write other pieces, you will need to confront that as a reader I'm likely ignorant of your experiences. So the writing must give me enough background information that I can make sense of what you are saying. In this case you did give the background information for Tamid, but only after talking about the organization structure first. Had the background information and mission been provided first, then it would be natural to ask what structure would best support the mission? If you have some ideas on that you might put them in response to my comment. But in future posts, it is questions like that which should occur to you in the writing. It is not always the case that organization structure best matches the mission. And, for student organizations in particular, I have a sense that they may have too many officers for efficient function, but that is because they have a subsidiary function - to give students some experience as an officer of a student organization.
I didn't get as strong a sense of what the Student Advocacy Group does and why the Alumni Association needs it as a partner. On that one you might simply elaborate what need it fills.
Regarding transaction costs, while information gathering and providing information for others is time consuming, no doubt, I'm not sure that those count as transaction costs in the way we mean them in our class. You should ask, was there any way for the transaction (in your case study abroad) to go poorly because the host institution might have mistreated you or somebody else in Amsterdam might have mistreated you. If so, whatever you did to prevent that from happening should be counted as a transaction cost.
Just to illustrate, we have a Dutch student in our class this semester (in Banner she is listed as a non-degree student). She was one of the early students to register for the class, ensuring she wouldn't be closed out of the course. For a brief time our class was full and nobody was able to add it then. I don't know hot his works, but if the student only was able to get U of I credentials by being on campus, then she must have arrived early as well. In that case the arriving early would be a transaction cost, done so that snafus like this don't arise or can be handled after that fact.
The Student Advocacy Group is a campus lobbying group, that works with the Alumni Assocation as SAC is one part of the Alumni Assocation and how it advocates for funding for the Univeristy. SAC works to plan the offical lobby day in Springfield, as well as planning to meet and speak with representatives and going to Springfield multiple times a year with Alumni Assocation staff. The SAC fills the need to have student represenation from the Unviersity of Illinois system while lobbying to represenatives to increase state higher education funding.
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