ASW hosted a discussion panel of administrators for students to raise questions about on-campus concerns.
ASW President Max Gutierrez, a senior and philosophy major, started the event by asking panelists how they hear student voices and what they do with the feedback.
President Beth Dobkin said she hears from students in multiple ways.
“I hear directly from individual students, information I receive is from reading The Forum, coming to events, walking across campus, attending performances, athletics [and] attending classes,” Dobkin said. “I’m simply having a conversation with them about what’s on your mind and what the experience [has] been like and how [I can] do a better job serving you.”
Vice President for Student Affairs & Athletics Brazell-Brayboy said she agrees with the things that Dobkin said, but she carries two attitudes with her when listening to students.
“One is to listen to past assumptions, practicing four or five questions into the topic before I understand and then I want to repeat that back to the student,” said Brazell-Brayboy. “The other one is I like students a lot, so I’ve chosen a career to work around students all the time.”
Provost Debbie Tahmassebi said she agrees with Dobkin and Brazell-Brayboy but her focus is more in the academic space.
“I like to hear about what students are spending time working on research projects or projects in the classroom,” said Tahmassebi. “You hear me listening a lot to students talking about either the classroom experience or their research experiences.”
The discussion then opened up to the rest of attendees.
Student Elena Allred, archival research major and junior said asked, “Are there any plans or considerations with raising student wages in the future?”
“We have been talking about providing greater opportunity for growth and really thinking about student employment as a track towards pre-professionalism,” Tahmassebi said. “A conversation around the different levels and opportunities to think about something growing into being more of a profession, or an internship with a mentor.”
Dobkin responded and said, “Every year it is something we take into consideration. How much can we raise and where can we raise? What I have to look at also is our staff salaries, they’re calibrated a bit against what we can pay our staff.”
Other students said they had concerns about on-campus residence halls.
Ellie Zeitz, a junior and sociology major, asked, “Are there future renovations for our residence halls?”
“Typically what you see most universities do is they time incremental improvements to the building,” said Brazell-Brayboy who then asked attendees what improvements they are looking for.
“I think the buildings need to be updated desperately, whether it’s plumbing, electrical,” Zeitz said. “We had a situation [in Hogle Hall] where our toilets backflooded into our kitchen sink and then our kitchen sink back-back flooded into our toilet and flooded all the floors.”
“There’s lots of issues and like I said it’s not just the building, it’s residential life as well,” said Zeitz
Brazell-Brayboy said Zeitz brought up some good points and that she hears what she is saying.
“I do believe that there can be more transparency around the way the residence halls are managed [and] follow back up with students,” said Brazell-Brayboy.
“The halls are old, please don’t hear me trying to convince you of any other light of thinking,” Brazell-Brayboy said. “I think you’re making some important points and asking some important questions.”
