Howdy folks,

I'm just going to copy and paste what I posted in the assembly for discussion and template purposes here, with the added note that the general consensus was that the MoRA would be the best place to start this. That would give it some time to develop and then we could see what needs to be legislated in order to keep it running as a permanent institution. That's my long term goal, but for now, these were my thoughts.

Tl;dr I'm proposing a re-envisioned TSP University. It's the product of my own experience as 10ki university dean as well as conversations with various members of the region and significant interest in such an institution.

Quote:Hey friends,

Once we get some kinks ironed out, especially as it relates to exact purview of leadership and how that would fit within the Regional Affairs thing that's going on right now, this can become an official legal proposal, but I don't think we're quite there yet. There has, however, been ongoing discussion in #legislators-lounge and in this hall about the possibility of forming a TSP University. I see this as a fantastic idea, and since I was the Dean of XKI University for about two and a half years over two different terms I'd like to give y'all my vision for what a University of TSP might look like, and offer my assistance in getting such a project off the ground.

Above all, I see a university as a regional hub for learning about, discussing, debating, and organizing events around the specific interests of the community, whether they be IRL or NS-related.

What exactly does this mean?
First and foremost, the community drives the content of the University. It is absolutely dependent on an active and interested community taking part in the active topics and starting topics of their own. Yes, having a dean and possibly a deputy dean to keep things running and drumming up activity is important, but it's impossible to keep going without community contributions. The idea is that all of us have our own interests and can learn about or discuss interesting topics that might not exactly fall into the other boards on the forum.

How does it work?
How we have it set up in 10ki is that there is a main board for currently active classes, clubs, and discussion areas, and then there is a subforum for the "grand debate hall," which is where people both post interesting topics they'd like to have a debate about, and where the University holds occasional formal debates over a preselected topic as a competitive game. Classes and clubs are led by members of the community. As professors, they create a thread and interested parties can learn about the topic at hand. I can talk more on how these work best in a future post, but I'm just trying to outline the basics here.
Basically:
• Classes - professor-led seminars or workshops focusing on a specific topic people are interested in learning about
• Clubs - generally function as discussion groups related to a particular theme. Some clubs also host events related to their theme or, as is/was the case with the chess club and a few others, run leagues or tournaments every so often.

Relations to the MoRA/other things that could be done through the university
Though I'm still catching up on what I've missed since I was last a legislator, I've been reading up on the debate about the MoRA position. I see the university, and the position of the dean, as a great way to offload some of the work that might otherwise cause the MoRA's job to be burdensome. In addition to its function as a university, I've also seen the idea of an advisory council or group of deputies to the MoRA of some kind. The university dean could function very well in such a capacity as one member of said council and/or serve as a deputy to the MoRA to assist in certain capacities of the job. While the university probably isn't the end all be all solution to the MoRA problem, I think it could be a good step in the right direction.

Just as an example, the University could play host to regional or interregional culture events, have a journalistic publication of some kind, do AMAs with government officials, conduct straw polls for regional offices, really a lot of the things that Viet listed in this post in the MoRA debate. A lot of this is possible and would fit well under the purview of a university, depending on the form it ends up taking.

This is just a very basic sketch of my vision for it, based largely on my experience as 10ki's university dean. TSP is a different community, it might have different needs or visions, and I'm interested in hearing what you all think about such a proposal. Fire away, you political fiends!