ASUSU VIEW: Student leaders listen to your feedback
Many of you may have noticed the suggestion boxes popping up around campus with suggestion forms that say Start, Stop, and Continue on them. Whether you came across this hap-hazardly or were walking down the hall in the TSC and heard Keenan Nuehring, administrative assistant to ASUSU President Tyler Tolson, announcing free donuts and hot chocolate for your input, you may be asking yourself, “What is this suggestion box all about?” Recently, the President’s Cabinet has started a campaign called Start, Stop, Continue, and it is a way for you, the student, to stay in better contact with the school in letting them know what you would like to see done here at Utah State University.
“We wanted to give students an outlet to voice their concerns that will have a direct impact on the way Utah State is run today,” Nuehring said, who has headed up the project in his role on president’s cabinet. “It just seems to me that students have really good ideas and are extremely passionate about Utah State, and often their ideas go unnoticed. We’d like to change that, and this is how we are doing it.”
As part of the office of Student Advocate, I often deal with students who have unresolved issues with Utah State. Whether it be with the administration, the auxiliary units, the faculty or simply the policies and procedures here at our fine university, many students are very passionate about how they feel things should be done here on campus and the school is listening. That is one of the things that I love most about Utah State. When you look at other schools in Utah and across the nation, there is a predominant sentiment that the students really don’t know best and they must abide the will of the university regardless of personal sentiment. The changes that student government is allowed to make at our institution is astounding to many of our peer institutions, and the amount of attention that is paid to the concerns of the individual student here at Utah State is nothing short of incredible. Indeed, our beloved USU has lent us her ear and she is ready to listen to all you have to say. Every entry will be looked at and responded to personally by either myself or Keenan Nuehring, and we will push these suggestions through to those who can make the necessary changes to Utah State.
So get to it, Utah State, tell The Hub what you thought of its food. Tell Stew Morrill to continue his winning streak. Tell your professors how to run their classes better. Tell Parking and Transportation why you got those parking tickets and what policies will keep you from getting more. Tell the -30 degree winds to stop blowing so hard on campus. OK, maybe not that one. There really isn’t much that the administrators can do to keep Logan from being a frozen tundra for almost half of the year. But whatever your thoughts, let your voices be heard.
The Start, Stop, Continue campaign is elegant in its simplicity and yet comprehensive in its scope. One of the concerns that this campaign overcomes is the tendency for feedback to always be negative. I rarely see students coming to my office to say that they think a particular policy of the University is great, or that they had a wonderful professor who they thought graded in an extremely fair manner and they just wanted me to know that. I tend to see students who have unresolved issues where they feel that they may have been wronged, and that scenario is a similar one to nearly every administrator I have talked to about the feedback they receive from students.
Negative feedback is necessary to change things that are wrong, but prior to this campaign there have been a very few avenues for students to go looking for a place to give an idea of something to start, or telling the University where they are excelling and should continue. A Stop campaign just isn’t enough, and it is hard for the administration to sift through the impact of certain policy changes without hearing the other side of things.
This campaign is a way for every student to have his or her voice heard on ideas that could make this University a better place, areas of particular excellence that the University should continue at the status quo, and things that the University should stop doing to make your experience at Utah State a good one. So let me urge you, the student, to take advantage of this opportunity and let us know what to Start, Stop and Continue.
Daniel Ricks is the ASUSU Student Advocate