“Maximize Mizzou,” one of the two slates running for Missouri Students Association president and vice president this month, wants to create a better stream of communication between the MU administration and students.
Samantha “Sami” Hole, Maximize Mizzou’s presidential contender, outlined Maximize Mizzou’s ideas about how to strengthen this line of communication.
Reporter Savvy Sleevar (SAV): Let’s talk about communication from administration. So first of all, what [processes] do you plan to implement to improve student-administration communication and relations if elected?
MSA Candidate Sami Hole (SAM): Yeah, so right now Mizzou really focuses on emails to communicate with students. [However], a pretty common standard of students is that they’re on social media. [MU administrators] know that students use social media, and they have somewhat adapted to these mediums, but not fully … What we want to do is not place any added strain on administrators … The administration also cares for this university, and we want to work together with that.
Hole suggested that a viable way to alleviate the strain on administrators in the process of increasing communication would be an entirely separate social media account from the official MU Instagram page, devoted solely to general student announcements from various MU sources.
SAM: It’s not something entirely new, and it wouldn’t be a strain on administrators.
SAV: How will your slate hold administrators accountable if it does fail to properly communicate with students?
SAM: The MSA president, vice president and speaker have a direct line to most of the administrators … If the administration is not going to communicate with students, then we will do that. Obviously, if there are private matters that need to be protected and secure, we’re going to respect that and respect those boundaries. But if it’s just general student information that we feel the student body should know [and] administration’s not going to give it to the students, we will give it to the students.
SAV: I’m wondering how you plan to gauge that student body satisfaction with administration communication throughout your term if you are elected.
SAM: [MSA has] been gathering [student satisfaction data on] COVID policies, student safety, health — the many things that have been going on at Mizzou … I would like to partner with that.
Ultimately, Hole said Maximize Mizzou would not want to “burn bridges” with administrators if elected, but “we have those bridges for a reason”: to facilitate communication.
Though this is an ongoing issue for students and administrators alike, remedying it will require a careful balance of respect and accountability directed toward MU administration. Additionally, it will also fall on the potential administration to make students aware of any important information that does exist, albeit hard to find or unknown to students.
Use this link to submit questions for the candidates to answer at the debate: https://forms.gle/ot2inTXzRbb2aBFMA
Edited by Emmet Jamieson | ejamieson@themaneater.com
