SGA provides avenue for dialogue with new Wufoo comment box

Photo+courtesy+of+Student+Government+Association+

Photo courtesy of Student Government Association

by Chase Thurston, Staff Writer

The Student Government Association has recently unveiled the use of a comment form to open a new channel of receiving student feedback anonymously.

Recent efforts to improve student life on campus, such as placing new charging tables in Kent Campus Center, SGA is looking for additional feedback on what students want to see on campus. A new method of getting that feedback is allowing students, in addition to faculty, to comment personally or anonymously on a Wufoo form. It is designed to act as a one-stop shop for any complaints, requests, or opinions.

“We’re still in the early stages of trying to market it and get it out to more students. We have gotten some feedback on the charging tables,” said Jailyn Seabrooks, student body vice-president and creator of Wufoo. “We’ve gotten a lot of feedback in the past saying there’s not a good avenue for students who have a comment or a concern, so we’re hoping this will help with that.”

SGA will be keeping the comment box in their minutes each week for students to find easily in addition to making it accessible on their Facebook page, and are planning to add the link on the SGA page on Simpson’s website. Promotion of the comment box in Kent or other areas on campus will likely be in future plans as well.

“We just have students select what class they’re in, and that’s just so we can track if some classes are using this more than others, and staff and faculty can also use it,” Seabrook said. “There’s not really anything that’s off-limits, which is why we gave the option to be anonymous.”

Even with the creation of the comment box, students are still welcome to express their opinions or concerns in other ways.

“We’re still welcome to students reaching out to any member on SGA, whether that’s one of the five that represent their class, or DJ and I, or Mr. Ramos. Any of those avenues are good,” Seabrook said.

Instead of looking for specific outcomes, SGA is hoping this will open the floodgates for new ideas to be presented.

“I think that’s the beauty of it, that we don’t really know what we’ll end up seeing. In the past we had something similar, five or six years ago,” Seabrook said. “It was used mainly just for students who had concerns about the ways SGA was spending their money or faculty and staff who had something to say.

Moving forward, SGA will be using the comment box to gauge student body concerns as a whole and attempt to find the best way to utilize their money.

“We’re not sure yet exactly how much of a factor it will have, but we definitely will take all comments into consideration,” Seabrooks said.