The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate conducts a student body-wide survey each semester to ascertain the level of support for the Senate's initiatives and proposed projects. In this semester's survey, e-mailed to students on Wednesday, students were asked questions in order for the Senate to gauge student support on topics ranging from the creation of an Africana studies department to the new sexual assault policy and the possibility of creating a communal kitchen.
A key purpose of sending out a survey to the student body, senators say, is to figure out whether the student body actually supports the work the Senate carries out. It is therefore a bit difficult to understand why the Senate two weeks ago voted in support of backing an Africana studies major and department and last night voted on the kitchen resolution when the survey results will not be available until next month.
In previous years, senators have placed a high premium on the survey's usefulness as a feedback system for the Senate, but they have also stated that the survey results are not generally used as a means to start new initiatives.
Last fall, the Senate enlisted the help of the "Public Opinion and Survey Research" course to make that semester's survey as statistically sound as possible and to make sure it accurately reflected student opinion. Voter turnout that semester hit 28 percent but fell considerably in the spring, partly as a result of less effort invested in getting students to vote.
The Daily wonders why the Senate does not make the most out of its semesterly student survey. TCU President Sam Wallis, a senior, ran his campaign on the promise of supporting students' needs and better reflecting their needs in Senate projects. The student survey is an excellent way of getting the necessary information to carry out this goal.
TCU Parliamentarian Dan Pasternack, a senior, said that the survey is partly used to get "extra backing" for certain projects, and in previous years, senators have commented on its value in encouraging the Senate in acting on their current projects. Yet its seems like some Senate members have at times used this survey as a way to justify carrying out the projects they already have their minds set on.
This year, they have gone so far as to skip even this step by speeding along on the kitchen project decision — a resolution in favor of the idea was approved last night — before they even know if they have student support for it. The same happened with the Africana studies resolution, which the Senate chose to approve long before student support was gauged.
Surveys can also act as a way to make the student body feel heard. It becomes a problem, however, when this is only a perception rather than a reality. Students do have the ability to submit comments, suggestions and project ideas to the Senate year-round. This is the reason Pasternack gave for not including a comment section on the online survey. And junior Tomas Garcia, the TCU historian and the chair of the Senate committee in charge of administering the survey, said senators plan to go door-to-door in the dorms to get a more personal sense of student opinion.
Still, we believe the Senate's reluctance to get as much and as accurate student opinion as possible is disconcerting. The survey should be used to evaluate current and upcoming senate projects. It should be used to see what is on students' minds even if there already exists an online comment submission forum — a line of communication that most students are likely unaware of. And it should be conducted in a more professional manner that represents a cross-section of the student body and systematically prohibits students from voting more than once — two things it fails to accomplish this semester.
The survey should most definitely not be a mere charade to be implemented and disregarded at the Senate's will. Having already experienced the difference some extra effort can make — as it did last fall — it is irresponsible to not continue this practice.
