Are Important Student Surveys Being Ignored?

By Ashley Ioveno
Staff Writer

During the winter break, LIU Post’s Office of Student Life and Leadership Development sent out a 70-question survey via email to all students. The survey asked for various ways to help evaluate and improve student life at Post. The students who completed the survey were entered into a raffle to win a $150 gift card and other various prizes.

Michael Berthel, associate director of Student Life, responded to questions about the survey that were directed to Alerie Tirsch, the director of Student Life. “One thousand, one hundred and sixty-three students, which is just under 26 percent of our population, responded,” Berthel said. However, the survey was sent out to all undergraduate and graduate students.

Kate Gambino, a sophomore Journalism major, and Chloe Evans, a senior Medical Imaging major, both responded with, “What survey?” when asked if they had completed it.

“I don’t ever check my school email unless a professor tells me to,” said Hunter Stones, a junior Social Work major.

The intention of the survey, according to Berthel, was to capture students’ thoughts, perceptions, and satisfaction with their experience at LIU Post, particularly their experiences outside of the classroom, but the majority of students did not respond.

Despite the low response rate, “We were able to find out a ton of information with the answers we received,” Berthel said.

“The most exciting thing for us was that an overwhelming amount of students are enjoying their social experience and feel connected to student life at LIU Post. In addition, a majority of students are happy with the events being offered. There are plenty of suggestions in the survey for us to work on and some changes that we will bring about as a result.”

“It is going to change the way we look at all of our programs, events, and services. We are going to use it to know what is going well and what we should keep doing, what is not going so well and what we need to change, and what is missing and what we need to add,” Berthel added.

“The Student Life and Leadership Development office shared the results of the survey with 40 of the campus’ student leaders during our annual winter leadership retreat, and it was able to give us some great insight into our programming on campus. The student leaders have put forth a tremendous amount of effort in planning more programs for the LIU Post community during the spring semester,” said Dan Potenzieri, a senior Political Science major and the Student Government president.

Since students requested “more comedians, more movie nights, and leadership workshops,” Post is already implementing these programs for the spring semester. Although some changes may be carried out during this semester, others may take a semester or two, according to Berthel. “The school is constantly talking about what to do next for students and how we can make the student experience better each semester,” said Berthel.

As for the $150 raffle, the winners will be notified this week.