The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate has recently discussed publishing an electronic newsletter and sending it out to students via email. One purpose of the newsletter is to keep students informed about the Senate's current projects, thereby allowing the Senate to get student feedback more easily. A regular newsletter informing students of Senate projects as well as other campus happenings is certainly a sound concept, but there is currently controversy about whether students should opt in to the newsletter or whether it should be sent to all students automatically with recipients having the option to opt out.
Having the newsletter be an opt-out system would be indicative of a kind of arrogance. The TCU Senate does important work. However, believing that students always want to hear all about that work is a vain assumption. A student actively chooses to pick up a campus publication, actively chooses to attend general interest meetings for organizations he or she finds interesting and actively chooses his or her level of involvement in extracurricular activities. There's a reason why students aren't mailed publications, automatically added to event rosters or given a requirement for extracurricular activities: Involvement is a choice.
Tufts heavily promotes the ideas of active citizenship and community involvement, but they are never forced on students. The resources are there for those who choose to explore them, but they are never assumed to be a part of every student's curriculum. By the Senate making receipt of the newsletter opt-out instead of opt-in, they are assuming that everyone wants to be regularly updated on their projects. The reasoning behind this seems to be that because every student is a part of the Tufts community, they will automatically want to know what's going on with the Senate. This assumption is, at best, extremely idealistic.
Automatic opt-ins may also breed apathy rather than involvement. Those who are automatically signed up for the e-list may find themselves requesting to be removed from it after receiving multiple emails regarding things in which they aren't particularly interested. It makes more sense to make being on the e-list an active choice, letting students choose when they want to hear about Senate's projects.
Would it be difficult for a student to click a link unsubscribing them from the e-list? No. The principle behind the assumption, however, is the problem, not the actual unsubscribing process itself. Tufts gives its students the resources and freedom to make their own choices when it comes to being involved and being an active member of the university community. Some use these resources and do amazing things with them; others prefer not to use them at all. Either way, each individual student chooses what he or she wants to be updated on and involved in. The university does not make that decision for them, and neither should the TCU Senate.
