Administration goes survey happy on student e-mails
Justin Thrift, Staff Writer
Issue date: 4/22/09 Section: Editorials and Opinion
Every student at St. John's can attest to the constant flow of surveys and University e-mails that seem to clutter up their inboxes on a daily basis. On one hand, the University e-mailing system provides a convenient way for the school to stay in contact with their students. But does the enormous amount of e-mails devalue and turn students off to important messages like course evaluation surveys?
The administration of St. John's tries very hard to convey a message that they care about the students' voice and their frequent request for student body feedback through various surveys firmly proves this point.
However, some students may not be happy about the constant invitation to fill out surveys, and who would blame them when they receive countless school related e-mails every week from the school's administration? Students are being turned off by daily e-mails to the point where they consider all school related e-mails a burden and stop reading them altogether.
Like the boy who cried wolf, the administration is losing student attention by flogging them with these daily messages.
The administration of St. John's would be wise to consider this, especially now as course evaluation surveys are starting to filter out into student inboxes.
The University recently switched to online evaluations after years of in-class evaluation sheets that students filled out during class time. The change to the online format is meant to be more convenient and private, but some teachers and administrators have complained that overall participation in the course evaluations has plummeted, even if made mandatory by the teacher. This is a problem because these course surveys make up a crucial part of the school's ability to improve classes and the overall education at St. John's.
If students weren't tired of constantly receiving trivial e-mails and meaningless feedback requests, they probably wouldn't mind filling out these more important course evaluations at the end of each semester, and survey participation
The administration of St. John's tries very hard to convey a message that they care about the students' voice and their frequent request for student body feedback through various surveys firmly proves this point.
However, some students may not be happy about the constant invitation to fill out surveys, and who would blame them when they receive countless school related e-mails every week from the school's administration? Students are being turned off by daily e-mails to the point where they consider all school related e-mails a burden and stop reading them altogether.
Like the boy who cried wolf, the administration is losing student attention by flogging them with these daily messages.
The administration of St. John's would be wise to consider this, especially now as course evaluation surveys are starting to filter out into student inboxes.
The University recently switched to online evaluations after years of in-class evaluation sheets that students filled out during class time. The change to the online format is meant to be more convenient and private, but some teachers and administrators have complained that overall participation in the course evaluations has plummeted, even if made mandatory by the teacher. This is a problem because these course surveys make up a crucial part of the school's ability to improve classes and the overall education at St. John's.
If students weren't tired of constantly receiving trivial e-mails and meaningless feedback requests, they probably wouldn't mind filling out these more important course evaluations at the end of each semester, and survey participation
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