No to Height Requirements in Personality Searches!

 I now write for the online publication of our university. My pseudo stint as a writer all began when I started writing news articles for the local college paper. This year I wanted to learn and experience more thus I decided to go university-wide by applying for a news writer slot at the online publication .

Being a university-wide news writer now gave me more opportunities to better my writing skills. The perks were also better compared to writing for a relatively small college. First is that I get the best seats and backstage passes in programs and events. I could see productions in a bigger sense, even seeing what going on behind the curtain. Another thing is that I get to mingle with a lot of people -those that I don’t know, those I won’t approach and those people from different backgrounds – to get information for my article.

I’m also learning to communicate more effectively and still maintain being relaxed during conversations. (I used to stutter a lot) I get to see the difference among the cultures of the different colleges, from the way they organize events to the supportiveness of the administrators, and even to the caliber of talent each college have. I had been witness to the full support of the regent of the College of Education during their celebration of Buwan ng Wika and to the active participation and fun involvement of the student of Rehabilitation Sciences during their college week, just to name a few.

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MMRS 2011: Safari Royalties

Last night, I was assigned to cover the 2011 Mr. and Ms. Rehabilitation Sciences Personality Pageant. From my point of view, the contest lived up to the name of being a “personality” contest. It hardly did discriminate those with less impressive height, weight, or face value. I was talking to Steffi Majarais, CRS Secretary and Project head of the pageant, and I was surprised to learn that no minimum requirement was set for those who aspire to join the contest. I realize that it’s a personality search for chrissakes! A model-esque height or a pretty face does not add to the beauty of one’s personality. 

At the near end of the pageant, the top 5 contestants were then judged based on equal percentage of beauty and intelligence. I am puzzled on the reason why the intelligence portion is measured based on impromptu answers of the candidates to the on-the-spot questions. Although it may be said that it measures how quick the candidate formulate an answer to a question, it fails to consider the other aspects of intelligence. I recommend that should the judges want to measure the intelligence of the individual holistically, let the SAT’s, IQ tests, and other tools that measure the multiple intelligences  do the talking! The judges would then be given a copy as to give some objectivity to the “intelligence” portion. Then again, this is is a personality contest and not a quiz bee so my suggestion might not be necessary.

In realizing these shortcomings in personality searches, I fear some colleges are clearly missing the point of these events by setting minimum height requirements for its participants. Because by doing so, a pageant becomes discriminating to the vertically challenged people (favoring the genetically gifted). It becomes prejudicial since it may presuppose that short people do not have enough personality to qualify for being a candidate, and at one standpoint, dictatorial since the standards of what a good personality is forced upon us. I hope our college this year may have winners who have both the personality and the intelligence to boot.

PS:

Congratulations to the College of Rehabilitation Sciences for being less conformant to the usual beauty pageant standards!I hope the other colleges and the organizers of The Search for the Ideal Thomasian Personality review the mechanics regarding the minimum height requirement.

All pictures came from the MMRS 2011 Facebook page