Since its launch a little over two weeks ago, Jumbo's Trunk, an online suggestion box sponsored by the Dean of Students Office and the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate, has received just over 25 submissions, according to TCU Senator senior Zo? Gibson, who played a key role in the creation of the program.
Only one was submitted in the site's first week running, but last week the number grew drastically. The topics of the submissions have varied, but Gibson has noticed some recurring themes.
"A lot of it has been directed to dining services and residential life and facilities," she said. Multiple entries have been made about mice in dorms, while another concerned the pricing of meals in Hodgdon.
While the option of submitting anonymously is available, almost all submitters so far, even one who had complaints about a specific person, have included their names. "Everything that has been what might be considered controversial has had a name on it," Gibson said.
Although co-sponsored by the TCU Senate and the Dean of Students Office, the Senate does not yet have a link to Jumbo's Trunk on its Web site. Senate Historian Neil DiBiase said that one should go up "within the week."
After renovations to the Senate's Web site are finished, however, it is not yet known if the body will create its own separate suggestion box to maximize its ability to directly respond to complaints, or if it will continue to rely solely on Jumbo's Trunk.
"I mean right now there isn't really a way for us to respond to the people directly, and eventually I would like to see a way for senators to address the concerns personally, rather than abstractly," DiBiase said. "Once the new Web site comes out, there will be a better, more concrete system for who responds to the complaints," he said.
Currently, the process of review begins with James Ryan, a coordinator of programs and special projects at the Student Services Center. He examines all submissions first, and sends to Gibson those that do not concern a matter of legal importance, such as a complaint about sexual harassment.
So far no submission that might require legal action has been received.
Ryan also distributes the submissions to the departments on campus they concern, while Gibson relays them to the senators responsible for dealing with those specific departments.
Some departments have chosen to respond directly to the submitters, while others have dealt only with Ryan. "Dean [of Student Affairs Bruce] Reitman sent an e-mail to the staff basically saying that it was up to them how they wanted to respond to the situation," Gibson said.
As of yet, no prank submissions have been received. No form of verification is in place on Jumbo's Trunk, however, to ensure that the submitters are actually students from Tufts. The reason for this is that such a security system would require a form of identification, which would compromise students' ability to submit anonymously.
"If we put in place measures to make sure that only a Tufts student can submit something to this box, that's also going to take away the potential anonymity from it," Gibson said.
