The Dean of Students Office and the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate are launching a new online suggestion box today.
The service, called Jumbo's Trunk, will be linked to the Dean of Students Web site and the Senate Web site, according to TCU Senate Culture, Ethnicity and Community Affairs (CECA) representative Zoe Gibson.
On the new Web site, students can report issues they have had with any part of their Tufts experience or make suggestions about specific departments at the university.
"I think it's a great idea, because I know a bunch of people, myself included, who have always been complaining about things they don't like about Tufts and there hasn't been an accessible or easy-to-use way to tell the dean of students or administration about what we want improved," sophomore Arya Meydani said.
Students can also provide their e-mail addresses in an additional form, but Gibson stressed that this is optional and only for the purposes of following up with students.
According to Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman, the suggestions that pertain to Student Affairs or the Senate will be addressed directly.
"There will also be things that neither of us can address, and those will be forwarded to the appropriate resources," he said.
He also said that each suggestion will be dealt with differently.
"Some suggestions ... are simple things," he said. "Some things, that require policy or budget changes, will be more difficult." He also said that some will be controversial, whereas others will not be.
Many students are hopeful about Jumbo's Trunk.
"I think that as long as the people who are backing [Jumbo's Trunk] are persistent in solving our problems, then it will be beneficial," sophomore Riley Kim said.
Meydani agreed. "If the Dean of Students [Office] partnered with the Senate, I would hope that they would take the suggestions into consideration, but only time will tell," he said.
Gibson said that the Senate will consider them and hopes that the increase in student input due to Jumbo's Trunk will enable the Senate to focus on issues that Tufts students actually care about.
"So often, the Senate works on projects that we think are important, but we get very little input from the people we are representing and who elected us," she said.
The Web site was created in response to a resolution that the Senate passed last semester entitled "A Resolution to Create a Police Incident Online Reporting System," that Gibson authored.
It called for "an online reporting system whereby students can report any problems or incidents that they have had with the police."
After Gibson spoke with Reitman, however, the two of them decided that one central venue to voice a variety of complaints would be very useful to Tufts students.
Reitman told the Daily that the new service will replace an older online suggestion box that few people knew about.
"Our office worked with the Senate to basically revise something that...we've had for several years now, a suggestion box, that was on the Student Services Web site," he said.
"It had not been used very much because people weren't aware of it or didn't find it."
