Student disagrees with previous letter highlighting UU survey issues

First and foremost I applaud you, Jesse Feitel, for bringing University Union’s violation of Bill 55.243 to light. As someone who has invested an extreme amount of time and money in this university, transparency of student organizations is extremely important to me. Involving the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment is a good move to ensure the validity of the data gathering, but I worry that the response will no longer represent the choice of the student body accurately.

SurveyMonkey’s strength is in its lack of friction to obtain results. Besides requiring a Syracuse University email address, the process of filling out the survey was painless. Compared to using university-approved systems, probably MySlice in this case, SurveyMonkey is better in nearly every aspect. The added friction of requiring students to log into a painfully outdated system would undoubtedly cause people to give up without submitting any results at all. And to your point of SurveyMonkey being insecure, the results all include emails that were submitted, which would make it trivial to cross-list against a database of “approved” email address. The added accessibility heavily outweighs the possibility of some bogus data.

I realize that this concert is using part of my student fee to pay the artist that I’m admittedly not a fan of, but that doesn’t mean that my money is being misrepresented. My student fee funds several organizations that I have no involvement with, and I don’t mind. The beauty of the student fee is that smaller organizations can use the funds to spread their message and affect others positively. I trust that UU did its best to choose the best option and, due to scheduling conflict or other, technically did its best to schedule the best musical artist.

I also take offense to your comment about how Ke$ha represents “nearly everything wrong with this generation of unaccountable 20-somethings.” Saying that an artist represents the views and ideals of an entire generation is a sweeping generalization. Consider re-evaluating your opinion or widening your gaze. This statement detracts from the main arguments of your essay and alienates the demographic reading it. You make excellent points about the transparency of organizations on campus, but unfortunately they’re overshadowed by your extreme bias.

As I’ve already stated, I’m not a fan of the musical choice. However, I’ve accepted it, I will not be attending and I’m going to have a blast on Mayfest regardless.

Chris Becker
Information Technology Major, Class of 2013