The Missouri Students Association’s Campus and Community Relations Committee is making an effort to hear students’ ideas with its newly installed comment boxes in the MU Student Center.
Students can present an idea or comment to CCRC by submitting a comment card to one of the two boxes stationed at the main MU Student Center entrances. Comments are anonymous, but there is an option for students to provide their contact information if they would like to be updated on the status of their suggestions.
“We (CCRC) want to give students the option to say their good ideas or say what are problems and what should be fixed,” CCRC chairman Mason Schara said.
A week after the boxes’ installation, there were more than five responses.
“Both (MSA Senate Speaker) Jake (Sloan) and I were surprised with the number of responses we got,” Schara said. “We expected maybe five in the first month, but we received more than five in a week.”
CCRC is already taking steps to solve one of the suggestions. This suggestion remarked that automatic flushing toilets around MU were not flushing properly and should have their sensors recalibrated. Schara said he plans to work with maintenance to fix this problem.
Schara said that most likely, not all suggestions will be fixable by CCRC. Instead, the committee will become a channel for students’ suggestions to be heard.
“We’ll be kind of the MSA messenger, so we’ll deliver the ideas of the students to whomever they should be delivered to,” he said.
For example, Schara said students suggested bringing certain speakers to campus. The committee plans to send these requests to MSA’s Department of Student Activities.
Another student commented that MU should become alcohol-free if it is going to be smoke-free. Schara said this is an issue that would be brought to the Panhellenic Association and Interfraternity Council.
Other students have had complaints about things at MU. Schara said one suggestion criticized food retailers at the MU Student Center for using LCD TV screens to display their menus despite many students’ push to make MU environmentally sustainable.
The idea for the comment boxes began in the spring of 2012 by Schara and MSA senator Jordan Denker after students gave suggestions to MSA senators who were tabling at the MU Student Center.
“We thought it would be beneficial to have something that students could give (suggestions) to year round,” Denker said.
After discussing different options with Jeffrey Zeilenga, the assistant vice chancellor for student affairs, CCRC decided to have comment boxes, which were installed on Sept. 25.
Sloan said the two boxes together cost MSA $521.60, but the boxes provide a long-term benefit that justifies the expense.
“While we understand that this may seem pricey, we also acknowledge the fact that this is a onetime cost for a piece of equipment that will never become outdated,” he said in an email. “Twenty years from now, if taken care of properly, the suggestion boxes will still exist and will continue to provide excellent suggestions from students.”
Schara said he and Denker are looking into adding a comment box online.
Sloan said these suggestions and comments would benefit all branches within MSA, not just CCRC or the Senate.
“While (MSA is) a pretty diverse group of people, we don’t cover everyone, and while we do have good ideas, we don’t get all the possible ideas we could work on,“ Schara said. “(MSA is) working really hard this year to actually be the voice of the student body.”
