Posted by Scarlet Olivia in Question for Parker Ticket and All Candidates
This election has been an unusual one for me, just when I think only one person is going to run, two people slip right in. I’ve stayed mostly quiet, but this first question is to Parker.

Why are you running conservative?

Every time you ran Sidney you ran with TJ Morgan who was all for drastically radical and sweeping changes of natures that left people speechless. Yet here you are, running to change hardly anything at all and leave the status quoe undusted. So I find myself confused, where did all that drive go? I remember the last time you two ran, it was a memorable run when Archer was running for prez.

For all candidates this is my question. What are your plans to keep the Academy active and to deal with the high turnover rate of activity that oft leaves the Academy struggling to keep going and worse, struggling to get more than say, one or two new members staying in the club?

Hopefully my questions are okay, this election seems to be so much more subdued than what I am used to lol.

—Scarlet

Thanks for the question about the Academy Scarlet.

Ok so here are a few options and as President I’d be pursuing each of them in conjunction with Academy Staff.

So the first and most obvious one is to simply change all new member applications to mandatorily go via the academy. The reasoning for this is approxiamtely 4 out of 5 new applicants choose the Academy as their join stream so simply removing the main fleet option would essentially simply some things and provide somewhat of a boost to numbers. This option does have issues of it’s own and would require addressing. Which brings me to my next topic.

The Academy Syllabus - https://www.star-fleet.com/acad/syllabus/

So what I would suggest especially in light of the fact that a recent survey found that 66% of academy graduates felt that they would have benefited from more roleplay, writing and character development that a overhaul of the syllabus to incorporate these concerns as well as to make the evaluation of these requirements more self serve would I think help to increase academy retention rates as well as to improve general graduate standards. The theory being that the academy was setup to essentially acclimate already developed roleplayers to the STF mantra. Where it’s design is lagging behind is in the necessary aids to assist developmental progress rather then simply time for those who require or want it.

Other options and I’ve alluded to it for increasing participation with the academy are advanced or extension courses, or adding incentives for players to spend time in the academy post graduation. Some including tying promotions to say LT Cmdr and Cmdr to repeat tours as Acad ship staff or in the case of extension courses for qualification for swing positions. Part of the exodus roadmap has included the possibility of a personell jacket and I’d like to see the concept of “endorsements” for characters. The idea is to incentivise club participation in the academy by hook or crook. This is probably a more long term sustainable method for ensuring academy activity. Now while I’ve given a couple of possible ideas and I would be pursuing the feasability of those first.

– Matt/D