making the MB University a better experience

[Lisabob]

Some boys from our troop attended a MBU yesterday and, as I mentioned in another thread, I ended up as a last minute MBC for the communications mb. Overall, feelings were mixed about the program and whether we'd do it again next year. Here were some of our pro's and con's.

 

Pro's:

1. There were lots of choices of mbs to work on (24 mbs offered, over 3 sessions, each of which was 2 hours long), including several that are tough to find mb counselors for, like oceanography and chemistry.

 

2. Most of the mb sessions were led by people who were clearly well qualified, established MBCs, so the content was pretty good, although most of the MBCs had a week or less to prepare because they were asked last-minute like I was. (Some were asked on Friday afternoon!)

 

3. Contrary to previous years, lots of partials were given (instead of lots of completed mb's for badges that hadn't really been covered adequately).

 

4. Most of the boys had a good time, learned a few new things, and either started or finished up badges that they were interested in or needed (eagle-required).

 

Con's:

1. This is a fundraising event for a service fraternity at the University where it was held, but that fact was NOT made clear to anybody when we signed up. Additionally, the entire event was (supposed to be) run by the fraternity. Would've been nice to know, as most adult leaders assumed this was something council had a hand in, and that registration fees were going to council also.

 

2. The organization was quite poor: one person doing check-in for 800 boys; nobody to collect payments for troops that were already registered and just needed to pay; classrooms that were too small so that boys were sitting on the floor and in the aisles; flat-out-wrong head counts given to MBCs so that many were short on materials and hand outs; lost registrations, the list goes on and on.

 

Organizational problems prompted many adult leaders to say that they weren't sure they want to participate in the future.

 

3. Some mb sessions had upward of 150 boys in them, leading to crowd control issues and behavioral problems (primarily, rowdy behavior and bad language/verbal abuse among scouts in a couple of situations).

 

4. Some mb sessions - particularly the larger ones - had too few adults in the room to ensure that the previous problem wouldn't occur or else, would be dealt with appropriately)

 

5. By the last session of the day many boys were pretty squirrely because they had been sitting in lecture halls all day long and they were tired.

 

6. They ran out of the "free pizza" that had been promised for lunch, probably because they budgeted one slice per boy (and none for leaders or staff!) and of course that isn't what actually happened.

 

7. overall, not enough coordination between the fraternity in charge and the council, despite apparent efforts by council to work with the fraternity. Council did step in at the last minute to help the fraternity locate MBCs, when it became apparent that they hadn't done so and that they had unqualified people in line to run many sessions. But of course the council folks weren't (and shouldn't have been) happy about needing to do this last minute to rescue the event.

 

In my mind, the positives outweighed the negatives, but looking forward to next year I'm thinking about how we (on the council side) might help this fraternity put on a better program, without actually taking it over from them. Part of the problem on their side is that they are undergrads - many without significant organizing experience - and there's a lot of turnover since undergrads tend to, well, graduate. Additionally, few of them were boy scouts themselves. So they have a steep learning curve.

 

Here are a few things I can think of that we could do to help; any thoughts or input you might have, I'd really appreciate and will pass on to the higher-up muckety mucks. (I'm just a lower-order muckety muck these days and happy to stay there)

 

* Several months prior to the event, the fraternity should send letters or emails to all MBCs in the council, explaining what and when the event will be, and asking them to teach a MB session.

 

* Once they have committed MBCs, they can develop their list of MBs to be offered from there, rather than the other way around (and then scrambling for MBCs to fit their list)

 

* They should have a computerized way of tracking and confirming registrations and payments, which they should be expected to share with leaders from council. (to avoid the problem of wildly inaccurate registration numbers due to poor record keeping, and to ensure that troops know their registration and payment have been received and processed)

 

* Council should insist that class sizes be limited to no more than 50 boys; less for certain hands-on sessions like chemistry. (To avoid having 200 boys in a huge lecture hall setting)

 

* They should encourage more hands-on mb work and less classroom learning type presentations. Especially at the end of the day, they shouldn't schedule the "sit & listen" types of sessions because the kids are just too squirrelly by then.

 

* They shouldn't even try to provide free lunch; let troops bring their own.

 

* They should have many more people from the fraternity "working" at check in so that one person isn't trying to process 800 boys!

 

What else can I suggest to them?

 

Thanks - Lisa'bob

 

 

[John-in-KC]

Lisa,

 

If you are willing, PM me off list. I will put you in touch with the Dean of our local MBC. His day job is one of the Deans of a four-year liberal arts college. He understands academic organization and production.

 

There are substantial and real challenges here:

- Check-in has to run well. Our MBC uses 1-2 staffers, but the check-in packets (and check-out packets) are BY TROOP, not by boy. Leveraging the leaders speeds the process.

 

- Food service has to understand the concept of 11-17 year youth are bottomless pits!!! It also has to provide something for the leaders.

 

- 50:1????? That's WAY TOO LARGE A RATIO!!!!! 25:1 max, and that does not count adult leaders to "help with the paperwork."

 

- A clear understanding up front about fees.

 

- TWO HOURS FOR A MERIT BADGE???? It takes lots of planning (and substantial requirements to be done as pre-requisites (read homework)) to get Cit in Nation down to 3 1/4 hours!!!! I could not teach Cit in Nation to standard in 2.

 

Sometimes sending them "the elephant" in feedback does not help; there's too many negatives, and your comments get blown off. Instead, target what you consider the 3 most important items in your comments.

 

Thanks for the feedback on your program.

 

John

A Good Old Owl Too

[evmori]

Making the MB University a better experience?

 

Eliminate it & concept! This is not how merit badges were intended to be completed.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Lisabob]

John, thanks - I will pm you for that contact info.

 

Ed, having seen how this one went I am at least halfway inclined to agree. But you know what, I don't have the authority to do that. Sadly, I have yet to convince my various district and council folks that not only am I really on the ball in terms of organizational capacity, I'm also omnipotent and never wrong. (Gotta keep working on that!) And so what's going to happen is, the MB U. will continue to take place. Lots of troops will participate (there were 800 or so boys at this one and that's mainly just from one district). So I'm taking a pragmatic approach. Not: get rid of it (which isn't realistically going to happen) but instead: make it better.

 

Also - the back story here is that this fraternity had previously run their MB U. under the radar, without even going through any district and council channels. At least at this point they're trying to work with council to provide a program that's closer to being up to standard.

 

Lisa'bob