IUSA launches campus transportation survey

The IU Student Association launched a new series of surveys to gain student insight, the first of which focused on campus transportation services.

IUSA Chief of Outreach Aparna Srinath said in an email the new Question of the Week initiative will give students the opportunity to voice their opinions via surveys posted to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

IUSA members will also be stationed at high-traffic spots on campus each Tuesday and Wednesday to gain additional feedback.

Surveys will be made available to students for a one-week period, after which the system that runs the survey, Qualtrics, will compile and analyze the data.

Next, Srinath, the initiative’s co-directors and other IUSA members connected to the question’s subject will determine a course of action.

“By directly surveying students all across campus, we can get a better feel for how satisfied or dissatisfied they are with certain aspects of campus, what they would like to see changed and how responsive they would be to certain IUSA initiatives,” Srinath said.

Maddie Beja, co-director of the initiative, said in an email posting students throughout various locations on campus will be an alternative method for receiving student opinions.

“We realized that one way to gauge student opinions was just to go out and ask them ourselves,” she said.

The initiative’s first survey was launched Sept. 16 and sought feedback regarding campus transportation services, including the Night Owl bus service.

Results of the survey have yet to be determined.

Co-director Angela Tursi said in an email this week’s survey came in the form of a questionnaire, and it served to gain an insight of students’ use of the bus service and what changes they would like to see.

“One of the most important questions we are looking at the responses is about the Night Owl service,” she said.

“We are curious as to how many students know about the Night Owl bus and if they would use it if it ran on Thursday nights.”

She said the survey has the ability to spur new initiatives and efforts from IUSA to make changes on campus.

“The survey helps us by giving us information to bring directly to the transportation office and show them that there really should be a change,” she said.

Beja added the initiative will continue to ask for student opinion in an effort to properly represent the student body on the University level.

“As part of the student government’s outreach department, our goal is to report to the University the opinions of the student body,” Beja said. “We represent and give a voice to students.”

Follow IUSA reporter Holly Hays on Twitter @hv_hays.