Residence life recently sent out a survey through Simpson e-mail to get student opinion about the facilities in which they live and their thoughts on Residence Life. When students complete the survey it allows Residence Life to see what things they are doing well and what things need improvement.

A most recent improvement that was brought to Residence Life’s attention through the survey was the laundry facilities. Director of Residence Life, Luke Behaunek sees the survey as effective.

“We use the information we receive for specific purposes each year,” Behaunek said. “Over years past something that we’ve paid close attention to is laundry facilities and that spurred a conversation with in recent years about changing our laundry vendor. So that is one tangible way we’ve used the survey in recent years.”

Community Advisers (CA) also find this survey beneficial because it is helpful for staff to see what they can improve on and how they are doing.

“It’s nice to know if you are doing a good job and one way we get to see how we’re doing is by our residents taking the survey,” Barker Hall CA and sophomore Kayla Ferguson said.

Residence Life staff encourages their residents to complete the survey with a 50 point lottery deduction and a pizza or sub party if 90 percent of their floor completes the survey. This year, students also have the chance to win a free parking pass.

Last year was the first time the 50 point deduction had been offered, and it proved to be an effective way to get residents to complete the survey.

“Based on the three years prior to that we had about 600 responses every year, last year it jumped to about 900, and the main thing that changed was the lottery point deduction,” Behaunek said.

If a residence reaches the 90 percent participation goal they receive a pizza or a sub party, but theme houses of four against a dorm with roughly 100 students doesn’t seem quite fair. Residence life splits up the residence halls to make it a competition.

“What we do is we break it down by living unit or housing area so not necessarily Barker as a whole but rather a certain floor or wing,” Behaunek said. “So it’s basically per CA or theme house so most of our theme houses are between four and eight students and just the odds are that you would have to get 90 percent everyone in the house would have to complete it where on a residence hall floor you might have a couple who are able to miss it.”

Sophomore Rachel Logan is a CA in Kresge who encourages her residents to take the survey.

“I have been telling my residents to take the survey and have been asking them if they have taken it yet or not. I also have it written on my white board on my door because they walk past every day,” Logan said. “The reason is because our goal is to get over 90 percent. If we do we get a pizza or a sub party also because we get feedback on how we are doing as a CA.”

The reason why freshman Kayla Wisnousky took the survey is plain and simple.

“I did it for the chance to win free parking pass,” Wisnousky said.