A 2nd year student recently e-mailed me about how Kellogg United would manage feedback if elected. Her questions were awesome and I wanted to share them with the rest of the student body. Here are her questions and my answers are posted in the next comment:
1) When gathering feedback how are you going to ensure that you hear the voice of the majority of the student body feels and not just the extremists?
2) How will you ensure that you are not overwhelmed collecting feedback, leaving no time for action?
3) How will you balance Kellogg’s current culture of being a student run school vs. implementing some controls?
Thanks for the questions!
1 comment:
Thanks for the questions! Underneath are my thoughts:
1) As a current 1st Year Moose KSA board rep, I attend weekly KSA board meetings in which we discuss what we "heard in the halls" for the first 10 minutes of the meeting. Almost every time we bring up a comment or issue, the follow-up question would be "Do you know how many other people had the same concern?" The answer is always a few people.
This is why our platform is focused on improving the decision-making process by proactively soliciting feedback. One idea is to have a website like Digg.com where we can post initiatives for students' to give a quick thumbs up or thumbs down. It would be a quick way to gauge interest and see if it's worth taking time to explore. We may initially get a small response, but we should hear from a greater number of students than we do now.
2) I can see how this can be an issue. However, I'm actually not as concerned with this issue based on the slate's strengths and the composition of the team. Based on past individual accomplishments, our team is naturally action-oriented and will be inclined to efficiently implement ideas. We want to gauge feedback quickly to provide direction on an initiative and then work towards implementation. Going forward, we will consider different options on how we can collect and evalute feedback in an efficient and effective manner (such as the Digg.com website) and will share those ideas with you.
3) It's a fine line. For me, it’s striking the balance between student-run initiatives vs. increasing coordination with other stakeholders (administration, faculty, KSA, etc.). As a result, it takes strong relationships with these various stakeholders to achieve this goal. For example, Craig Koester (candidate for VP Career Mgmt) has developed very strong relationships with the CMC staff in his role as 1st Year KSA CMC Committee member. It will certainly help with implementing initiatives quickly.
I loved how you pointed out that it is a balancing act. If we’re not striking the right balance, I have no doubt that students will want to provide their opinions. This is why we want to improve the process in soliciting feedback: to ensure students are heard and are involved in the KSA decision-making process.
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