Student leaders just aren’t getting the message. If you have something important to do, do it right the first time.
Some members of the Associated Students of the University of Utah have been floating a proposal to increase student fees to pay for campus sustainability projects, known as the Sustainable Campus Initiative, and have been keen to show evidence of student support. But the validity of both major gauges of student backing are questionable.
The first is a survey filled out by 691 students, with 98 percent responding positively to the initiative. However, the survey was conducted one night at the Black Pumpkin Affair. Although gathering almost 700 responses would be a great resource under normal circumstances, gathering all surveys from just one event is a good indication of how the students who attended the Black Pumpkin Affair feel, but not how the student body as a whole feels. Student-sponsored events cater to a similar group of students, and giving the survey to just these students will result in a consistent response.
Instead of employing a non-representive survey, ASUU would have done better to use an e-mail survey sent to all students to gather a more representative sample of respondents. In years past, ASUU used this method to gauge support for both the fine arts and study abroad student fees. Thousands of students filled out the surveys and the information was more accurate and represented a wide sample of the U student body.
The second attempt to gauge support for the sustainability fee was a petition signed by more than 2000 students. Although ASUU representatives pretty clearly mentioned the fee increase, often reminding students it cost no more than a burrito, a petition on such a complex issue isn’t very reliable. On the petition was printed information about the fee, but we wonder how many of those 2000 students read beyond the title. “Sustainability” is an excellent buzzword, and who wouldn’t sign a petition in support of environmental friendliness? Everyone wants to save the world.
Although many students are still confused on how ASUU plans to implement the initiative, student leaders continue to reference these two unreliable evidences of student support, rather than laying fears to rest with valid answers. Instead of winning student support by the merits of the initiative alone, ASUU continues to flash these two gauges of backing, and neither one is an accurate representation of how the student body feels in the first place.
In another bid to gain support for the controversial initiative, ASUU legislators lowered the proposed attached student fee last week from $5 to $2.50 per semester. The change might have helped the bill pass through the ASUU Assembly, but it didn’t solve the problem. At $5, the new student fee still would have taken many years to build up enough money for the program to operate at full capacity. Lowering the fee to $2.50 will double the time it takes to reach that point. Although compromise is admirable, the original $5 fee would have achieved the initiaive’s aims more quickly.
The tragedy is that the basis of the initiative is a good idea, and the recent amendment in the ASUU Senate to re-evaluate the fee after three years is promising. ASUU could have saved itself a lot of trouble had they followed the examples of their predecessors and gathered reliable information.
We support this fee increase, but it’s a shame student leaders have presented their case so poorly.