Subject:
Proposal regarding Gymkhana Blues
From:
asahay@iitk.ac.in
Date:
05-04-2016 05:37
To:
chair_ss@iitk.ac.in
CC:
presidentsg@iitk.ac.in, 14168@iitk.ac.in, chiraag@iitk.ac.in, msurya@iitk.ac.in, sportsecy@iitk.ac.in

Dear Vedant,

I am sending you a proposal regarding the Gymkhana Blues award to be
considered in the next Senate meeting.

Further, while I realize that is a late stage for a change of this nature
to take place, I would request that the proposal be considered by the
Gymkhana Blues panel so that they may account for it in their
recommendation this year, in case the Senate is willing to accept the
proposal. Why this may happen will become clear when I explain this
proposal, which is why I am copying this mail to the panel's convener and
the President.

The proposal is as follows:

The Gymkhana Blues award, like the other Gymkhana Awards is awarded to
General Body Member of the Gymkhana - that is, a current registered
student, for his/her contribution to either Gymkhana as an institution, or
the General Body as a whole, or, in aggregate, a lot of individual General
Body Members. The award is the highest recognition given by the Gymkhana
and is meant to celebrate the impact of the student on the student
community on campus.

With this context, I would like to bring to your notice that the impact of
a student's contributions is not necessarily immediately apparent while
they are a student on campus - and, conversely, the impact of a student's
work may be inflated while he/she is on campus, compared to what it really
is. In my opinion, the true impact of the work cannot be measured just by
its immediate effect, but should also be measured by the long term effect
of the work in question - something which necessarily cannot be judged
then.

I am proposing that instead of the award being given to a current student
of IIT Kanpur, it should be changed to read "an alumni of the Institute
who has graduated in the past three years". The justification is as
follows - (a) It is much easier to measure the impact of a student's work
after he is gone: hindsight, in this context is 20/20. (b) Three years is
sufficient time for the effects to linger, and not long enough for the
contributions to be forgotten. Any longer, and people on campus may no
longer even be aware that the student was ever on campus. (c) By
restricting the award only to alumni and not giving it to current
students, we are setting a benchmark whereby we are judging the student
holistically for all the work that he/she has done for the Gymkhana over
his/her entire stay on campus. Furthermore, this reduces the possibility
of the decision being biased or polarised by the fact that the student is
on campus - if a student currently on campus (such as say, a popular
President, Students' Gymkhana) is being measured against one who is not on
campus (say, a former General Secretary of the Games and Sports Council or
a former Finance Convener), then the presence of the President, as well as
his on-campus clout may result in him/her getting the award over the other
candidates, merely because their friends are not on campus and are not
making the effort to ensure that they get the award.

With this context in mind, I believe that it will serve the Gymkhana
better in the long term to make this change from the award being from
students to alumni. This will also remove one of the pressing concerns we
have each year - what if there are multiple graduating students who are
"good enough" to receive the award? We often either have to overlook a
good candidate, or have to give the award to someone who is graduating
over someone who is not, despite the contributions of the non-graduating
student far outweighing the contributions of the graduating student.

As a secondary proposal, I am proposing that if the Senate is not
agreeable to changing the eligibility from student altogether, we may make
the eligibility any student or alumni who has graduated within the last
three years. Thus, in case there is no eligible/deserving alumni, the
award may still be given to a student on campus who should receive the
award.

Finally, in either case, I would like to recommend a name to the panel for
Gymkhana Awards which was (to my personal consternation) overlooked once
in the past by the panel when I was a member. This name is that of Anant
Mundra, who was the General Secretary of the Games and Sports Council in
the Gymkhana Year 2013-14, which is the year that IIT Kanpur won the
General Championship at the Inter IIT Sports Meet for the first time in 49
years. The reason we overlooked his name was simple - that year we were
already strapped; we had recommended *two* names already that year (an act
which was technically not allowed by the rules of that time) and the
contributions of both Ankit Bhutani and Ankur Pandey seemed, at that time,
greater than that of Anant. This was especially because there was no solid
reason to believe that the win was anything but a fluke, a stroke of
chance or skill that would not continue to future years. However, it is my
belief that the growth of the culture of Games and Sports on campus
(including, but not limited to IIT Kanpur's win in the 50th edition of the
Inter IIT Sports Meet) in the past few years can directly be traced to
policies, decisions and initiatives taken during Mundra's time.
Furthermore, the win itself was a huge motivation for the entire Council
to unite in spirit and continue the good work started in his time. I do
not, as a member of the panel then, now believe that we took the wrong
decision - at the time, the impact of Mundra's work was unclear, while
Bhutani and Pandey's work had clear far-reaching implications that were
evident even then. In fact, I feel that there is no way for the panel of
that time to have foreseen the outcome of Mundra's work given the
information that they had available to them, and this, I believe gives a
great working example of why the scope of the award should be expanded the
way I have proposed.

To summarise, I am proposing that alumni be awarded instead of students.
Further, I am requesting that the Gymkhana Blues panel take cognizance of
my proposal, and prepare a recommendation in that context - one
recommendation in case the proposal passes and another in case the
proposal doesn't (although, I suppose their recommendation could
theoretically be the same in both conditions, or at best may change only
insofar that Mundra will no longer be awarded). Finally, I am proposing
the name of Anant Mundra, in case the Senate looks at the proposal
favourably.

I have copied this e-mail also to Chirag, Surya and the General Secretary,
Games and Sports Council in case they wish to support the arguments I have
made.

Sincerely,
Anurag