The Associated Students, Inc. Senate is coming at us with another survey and it’s time to let out a 35,000-plus gigantic community groan.
This survey, as announced at its last meeting (and reported in the Daily Forty-Niner), will try to figure out why Cal State Long Beach students and teachers have poor interpersonal communications.
Citing a National Survey of Student Engagement (another droning survey), the ASI has decided it would help it put its fingers on the pulse of the student body. The result of the national survey indicated that CSULB is “rated poor” in teacher-student connectivity when compared to other universities nationally.
Perhaps what the ASI should do is take an introspective survey and find out why it is disconnected with student needs, even though communicating with its constituencies are among the promises made when soliciting for ASI positions.
Representing those who have their wallets drained by ASI fees each semester is part of the oath of each office. When they were seeking support for their desired seats, many of them even said out loud they were in it to represent the best interests of fellow students.
To their credit, some have stuck valiantly to their sworn duties. But those seem to be too few in number to overcome the ones who haven’t.
Many have failed miserably. It almost seems as if some of our elected officials forgot their missions as soon as mom and dad took the grip-and-grin swearing-in pictures for the family photo album.
We’ve already witnessed how the ASI treats “extensive surveys” this semester. The University Student Union took one that showed students wanted healthier food choices.
The ASI interpretation of that “want” list was that students “wanted” to shut down the Music Listening Lounge. It somehow proved to the ASI that the most important “need” for its 35,000 diverse electors was to install a tanning salon. A student outcry negated that plan.
Maybe what our student government leaders should do to address communication disorder on this campus is to venture out among the students. They could try holding one of their Senate meetings in the Raza Resource Center to discover it needs computers, air conditioning, carpeting and decent furniture, promises made more than a year ago.
They might consider spending a little time in some of the other student spaces in the ghetto that could stand cosmetic improvement.
Before they start experiencing the malady of lame-duck separation anxiety, they can possibly attend a Campus Coalition Against Hate meeting to learn how a multiethnic, multicultural community overcomes communication difficulties between teachers and students about important sociological concerns.
Wouldn’t it be a wonderful message if our student leaders would take the helm by assuming the leading role in the student-led initiative campaign to fight the seemingly inevitable tuition increases to be shoved down our throats by the board of trustees next year?
It would be incredible if they could have our administrators actually address “letters of no confidence” signed by nearly the entire Chicano/Latino studies department in a timely manner. The faculty communication sat on the shelf for a year and only got a vague response when the Daily Forty-Niner was querying the Hispanic Serving Institution grant.
The administrative disconnect on the subject has even appeared at length in OC Weekly. Questions about how the HSI money has been spent thus far, and what products have evolved, are still elusive. For some reason, nobody is communicating.
No apology to the ignored and glaringly disrespected faculty appeared in the long-overdo reply. In fact, the “no-confidence” issue wasn’t even mentioned, so it hardly counts as a reply. A survey about how faculty is seemingly cornered and brow-beaten into institutional submission might help loosen some tongues, rather than nurturing a “see-no-evil” mindset.
It could be that communication problems exist because of a lack of trust between teachers and the reigning bureaucracy. Take a secret survey on that topic, ASI Senate.
If teachers and employees are knuckled under by heavy-handed practices that disregard collegiality, it might reflect on their ability or desire to communicate with students beyond the lecture halls or classrooms.
A sense of “What’s the point?” is created. Opening up can potentially get you shut down at The Beach.
We don’t diminish the value surveys can produce in fixing problems. Some are great for figuring out current sociological and cultural trends, which can lead to eventual remedies.
It’s hard to understand how the one the ASI proposes to give at near-gunpoint during crucial last-minute class time – while students and teachers are communicating about upcoming finals – is a good strategy.
What should be pointed out is that the ASI must learn how to communicate before trying to figure out why others don’t.
That can only be accomplished by having our student government jump into the trenches to study the perceived crisis first-hand, not through lengthy surveys.
Solutions to student-teacher-administrator interface problems are attainable, but the research should entail actual face-to-face contact between all parties – including the ASI.
