By Sarah Neill
Contributing Writer and Dean of Students

As your Dean of Students, I was saddened to see this sentiment and in particular, the senses that SGA exists as a ploy to placate students or to somehow ‘trick’ students into feeling that they are being heard.

I can think of numerous ways that we both receive and solicit student input that informs and directs many of our activities and priorities.  I see senators in SGA as an essential partner for this and we have regularly solicited input over my fifteen years at the College.

I, along with many of my colleagues see this group of student leaders as a valuable sounding board that helps us to test some of our assumptions, generate ideas and receive vital feedback about the student experience to bring back to College Leadership.

I would like to offer a few examples of the ways in which I have found SGA as a body both useful and influential in developing our priorities.

As many of you may recall, I recently visited SGA with Janet Fishstein, to share the details of the master planning process. The purpose of this meeting was threefold: To help students understand the master planning process and timeline, and their role in contributing to the process as key stakeholders, to share input to date, much of which was generated/informed by students as solicited by SGA, and to solicit ideas for alternate student venues to receive additional input.

For student satisfaction, every two years, we administer the Student Satisfaction Survey, and plan to administer it again this spring. Following the last administration, I brought the results to SGA with my colleague, Dean Renee White. In order to make use of and best understand these results, it is important that we share them with students to help identify priority areas of focus. And this is what we did and will continue to do moving forward.

One of the most prominent items in the Student Satisfaction survey was a call for enhanced academic advising for students—this was an item in which the SGA senate reinforced and identified as a top priority. Since this time, an Advising Office has been funded and developed and you have been visited by the Director of this department both to be informed of progress, as well as to ask questions and offer input into outreach to students. (As of last week, the Advising Office has met with almost every member of the first year class in preparation for registration.)

I want to underscore that the Student Government Association is a student led, student- populated organization. Members of the executive board are elected by their peers to represent them, and the senators are selected from each student organization. I can assure you, as your Dean of Students, not only do I rely on the collective voices of our students through the SGA body, but I see it as an essential ingredient to a community that values its students, their experiences and what is ultimately required for their success. I am always open to hearing about matters of student interest and concern and to improving upon the student experience at Simmons based on this understanding.

In closing and perhaps most importantly, as appointed or elected students you not only have the right to voice your opinion in senate meetings but a responsibility to represent student opinions or concerns. In fact, you are the voice for those students not present in the room.

For all students, I hope you will consider the important role of SGA and if you are in a leadership role, the important opportunity before you to represent your peers and to shape the undergraduate experience at Simmons.