[Gandhi89]

Student Disengagement and Communication in the MSU

BY SID GANDHI

It was during my first welcome week that I was given the spiel about the concept of a union that represented every student at McMaster University.

I didn’t really grasp the meaning of it then, and now eight months into my term as a Student Representative, I realize that a lot of students are in the same boat in terms of their perception of the McMaster Students Union.

Six of my friends and I conducted a very informal survey asking students one simple question. ‘Are you part of the MSU?’

The collective answer was a loud and resounding NO.

After giving them a detailed explanation of why they were wrong and what the MSU does, my friends and I went back home and sat around a table and thought about the issue.

We thought– How can you solve a problem of student disinterest at school? What, if anything, are we doing wrong?
As a marketing student, we thought about the Product…

The MSU is an amazing organization with an enormous number of opportunities that allow students to get involved and develop as individuals under the oneness of the McMaster community.
Why would anybody not want to get involved? The product seems absolutely super.

We thought of the Place –Accessibility in the Student Centre and clubs and services all over campus, perfect in terms of outreach to our target market – the typical student

We tried to figure out the Price – Time, effort, guts, commitment – students have to have the time and the willingness to put in work to stay in touch with what is happening with the MSU. For many first years, it’s a matter of sheer guts and taking the leap and going out of their comfort zone to make new friends and get involved. That’s fairly large price – but we knew it could be worked around…

Finally – we thought of the Promotion – what is the MSU doing to get students engaged?

Welcome week – There is a lot of talk about the MSU there and there is exposure for sure- but is that getting the job done? Are students thinking of the MSU as something external? Do they know that it is THEM?

What is the SRA doing? What is the Board of Directors doing? What are the Maroons doing?

After looking at the different ways we communicate – a couple pages in the Silhouette, minutes in the MSU website, a website that has 4000 subscribers that include graduated students – It was pretty clear that our biggest issue with student engagement was getting information about the product out to the students.

The idea that people have about the MSU was that it is a club – That the MSU is an organization that only people who are already involved can contribute to…There is a very clear perceived notion of an MSU bubble that does not encourage participation in very subtle ways such as occupied members not accepting criticism, and an idea that to grow in the MSU, you need to befriend people who are at the top.

Now I am not going to comment on whether or not it is true. But it is a very crucial issue in the minds of students, and it is waiting to be addressed. Communication in the MSU is a disaster and we need something that can unite the masses through organization of ideas and information.

There was an MSU brainstorming session in our house and Daniel Elbirt, an esteemed MSU member, and I came up with a system that can integrate information from different faculty societies, clubs and organizations so that it is brought to every student that is interested in the simplest and most effective manner: A centralized database that powers an interactive planner/ information feed—personalized to each student.

In the simplest of terms, every event posted by a club/organization that you have expressed interest in will appear on your personalized calendar. You will be able to edit it, add your own events and use it as a tool for organizing your various academic and extracurricular commitments.

A suggestions feature would support this, acting to network on behalf of students and boost initial involvement and knowledge of what is available on campus. Unlike the MSU website, this will be customized so it is your life, planned out for you: it delivers information that is personally meaningful, directly to students, rather than asking them to navigate the complex and unintuitive system that is the MSU.

Ultimately, that is the problem with the MSU. If projects and initiatives are supposed to succeed and resonate with students, they have to come out of engaging the student body in meaningful discussion, finding out what they actually want and giving it to them. This lack of market research and active engagement is killing the sense of understanding and community that I think the MSU should represent for students.

We pitched the idea to a bunch of faculty societies and the Executive Board. We came up with costs, logistics and we have a plan of action…It is in a stage where we need to get approved funding from societies, but there are other alternatives.

Student Involvement is a concern. It is a concern the MSU has had for some years now. Last year we had a 12.5% voter turnout and the 87.5% of students are being blamed for apathy.

A friend of mine said this during a discussion about student apathy and I quote, ‘The problem with the MSU is not student apathy…its student disengagement’. The onus is on us to go out and touch the lives of students, and actively bring them into the community and nurture their ideas.

It is in fact the student leaders today who create the student leaders tomorrow – There is clearly a daunting task ahead of us, and as a student representative I would like to assure you that we as your government know, and are working to make things better.

So if you see me wandering around Mills, talking to people about the MSU and what it does for them, feel free to join in. Like I said, if we want to get anywhere, we need everyone to participate and make a stand for the things they care about. I, and my fellow representatives, want to help.

Voter turnout is a measure of student engagement, but not the only one. So long as it seems to be the measure of the week, let's go with it for now.

Voter turnout in my first three MSU presidential elections was in the range of 39-40%. It hasn't been over 35% since 1998. Last year's 12.9% was the lowest in MSU history.

Basic information about the MSU is readily available --- on the Student Union's web site and in the MSU Almanac which was broadly distributed during Welcome Week (copies are still available on the racks outside the MSU Office). The key to effective member engagement in any student government is having candidates who engage the constituency and make an effective case for electoral support.

Slick posters and web sites are no substitute for getting back to basics. When students sees a candidate addressing a class and are convinced by the substance and style of the presentation that the candidate is sincere, capable, and has a program worth supporting, the student will vote. That's engagement.

Originally Posted by Dave.Moore

Slick posters and web sites are no substitute for getting back to basics. When students sees a candidate addressing a class and are convinced by the substance and style of the presentation that the candidate is sincere, capable, and has a program worth supporting, the student will vote. That's engagement.

I couldn't agree more!

In my recent SRA campaign I very surprisingly manged to receive the highest vote count for the election cycle. In retrospect I am quite sure it was in part due to my successful class talks where I was effectively(In my opinion) able to convince the usually "apathetic"(as the buzzword goes) social science students that my brand of extremely specific and research and application based platform is what makes me different hence "I don't have to resort to tacky tshirts or shiny *attempting to be funny* posters or grandstanding claims like lowering tuition" to gain votes.

I recognized a number of people from my classes actually going out to vote later on in the day; so I guess it does work.

On the other hand we have the big question(as posed in a recent Sil website comment debate): What has the MSU done for me in the past few years?

This question is something I faced during my own campaigning from upper years as well.

Hence I would really love to know the propotion of Upper years vs New Students voting. I have this wierd feeling that upper years are disillusioned and hence abstain from voting.