Parking concerns and the rising cost of housing took the top spots on Student Government’s forum survey conducted Feb. 21.

This year SG took a different approach to gaining student feedback, which proved more successful than previous years. Last year, SG gathered student organization leaders and hosted a discussion. However, not much feedback resulted.

This time around, SG focused on the general body, and approximately 60 students came forward to voice concerns, such as parking, campus promotions and advertising, housing fees, surveillance and safety, wireless Internet access and printing in the SG computer lab.

It also asked students what concerns they have about student organizations. Many organizations feel they are underfunded and find it difficult to get rooms for meetings and events.

Laura Klosterman, a member of the debate team, said the club practices in a storage box-filled room in the Student Services building.

“One time they had an art show going on in there, and we had to do our debate between art projects,” Klosterman said.

Although less than 1 percent of the Tampa campus enrollment responded, senator and Organizational Outreach Committee Chair Julie Baumann still plans to announce the top concerns to the SG senate. According to Baumann, the prevailing major issues will be made known to the executive branch after senate discussions.

However, student voices may continue to be ignored because of their choice of words.

“Being how a lot of complaints were very vague, we can’t do very much with that,” Baumann said.

According to Baumann, if students think their concerns are crucial enough for SG to do something about, they need to contact their elected SG members or fill out a comment card at the SG office.

The other common responses were grouped into categories. Safety on campus and Residence Services took the third and fourth spots on the lists. Students surveyed want surveillance cameras installed in common areas to reduce property damage expenses being extended to all on-campus residents.

After the fatal shooting of Ronald Stem near the Magnolia Apartments in February, Coordinator of the Counseling Center for Human Development Olga Skalkos said there was an increase in the number of students who visited the center.

“Some people came in with an awareness that they didn’t have before, that there is no absolute on safety,” she said.

Other students want to see more locations on campus provide wireless Internet access. Coverage encompasses most academic buildings but not the areas outside them.

Students also want the SG computer lab to provide more free prints. It provides students with 30 black-and-white prints per day, 10 of which can be color. Students said some type of rollover plan should be enacted.

SG gains feedback throughout the year by conducting open forums, providing comment cards and speaking at orientations.

Students may be used to ignoring emails asking them to fill out a survey about the latest Student Government (SG) initiative, but SG is working on more effective ways to reach out to the campus population.

Focused more on social media and in-person connection approaches, these changes are in response to low survey results and response bias.

Suzane Nazir, the Senate relations chair for the legislative branch of SG, is at the forefront of the changes to the way surveys will be organized.

“The way surveys work in Student Government is a student, any student, comes to us about an issue,” Nazir said. “For example, a couple years back a student wanted a new vending machine. She came to us with an idea, and she wanted to survey the student body. She sent in a series of questions that she’d like to be asked, and the relations committee worked on the questions to make sure they aren’t biased in any way. Once done, our advising office would post it on BullSync.”

An issue Nazir found within the old survey system was that only people with personal stakes in the issue participated.

“The problem that I saw was response bias,” Nazir said. “The people who were really passionate about an issue would go and respond, and the people who think it’s terrible would respond. That’s not a good representation of the student body.”

Meeting people face-to-face is the best way to have them understand an issue, according to Nazir. A large part of SG’s survey revamping will be centered around in-person connections — asking students at random around campus.

“This year, I wanted to stray away from BullSync and to directly survey students,” Nazir said. “We’re creating a ‘Student Concerns’ page which I’m working on right now. Every week we’d be targeting different areas of campus … to target different demographics and get a more accurate representation of students.”

Nazir said the "Student Concerns" page will be posted on social media when it’s completed and any student who has a concern can utilize it to make SG aware of a situation.

As well as meeting students in popular spots around campus, Nazir also plans on hosting at least two “town hall” inspired events each semester in which students can ask senators questions and make student leaders aware of certain issues.

Nazir is looking to also meet with the student organizations who vote on potential issues.

“In order to get a more personal conversation going, I’ve been talking to the (Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement) and generating a list of different student organizations based on demographic,” Nazir said. “Having senators go to their meetings and announcements or having a face-to-face conversation with these club members is very important. That’s their comfort zone, and they’re usually willing to talk to us about issues, especially if it’s an issue that impacts their organization.”

In addition to the surveys, SG is also looking to update its petition system, an action in which any student can pitch an idea for the campus. According to Nazir, petitions need 2.5 percent of the student body signatures to be passed into the SG Senate, from which it is internally voted upon.

Besides meeting students in person in order to hear their concerns, a push for stronger social media presence will also be in place.

“I really want to get more active with our Student Government Facebook account,” Nazir said. “I want to do a better job of promoting that because one post a day or two posts in two weeks isn’t ideal.”

With these new changes in place, Nazir is hopeful for the future of student surveys on campus.

“People don’t care if you say, ‘please fill this survey out,’” Nazir said. “People must have a personal connection to the things they’re voting on. Having this new system of one-on-one conversations and holding events where you’re actually explaining the background of it and explaining how these surveys impact them as students, I think it’s really going to help.”

https://www.usforacle.com/2018/08/28/student-government-survey-system-will-be-updated-to-better-reflect-the-student-body/

Senate Relations Chair Suzane Nazir said that Student Government will focus on surveying students in person to avoid the response bias that was prominent with previous methods of surveying. ORACLE FILE PHOTO