It would seem that everyone wants to know what you think these days. Whether it’s a pop-up on a website, a phone call, a paper given out in class or delivered to your inbox — surveys are inescapable.
With their surveys, companies and Concordia in particular, seem to be espe- cially concerned with knowing how you feel about their product. In Concordia’s case, the product is their faculty, staff and facilities.
Over a four-year period, (the typical length of undergraduate study), students are likely to have been asked to fill out countless surveys for Concordia. Each se- mester students are given surveys regard- ing their courses and periodically student inboxes are peppered with surveys that ask them to rate different aspects of Concordia.
However, the results of these surveys are never shared with the student body, nor is their impact directly perceived.
For instance, if a course or its profes- sor is rated poorly by the majority of its students, shouldn’t students be made aware? Shouldn’t students have the right to make informed choices about what courses they take, including what other students thought about the course and/ or the professor? How are we to know whether the department is acting on student feedback unless the results are made public?
Websites such as ratemyprofessor.com can be helpful but the feedback forms that Concordia gives out asks questions to which contributors on ratemyprofessor.com may not have the answer.
Furthermore, some of the questions relate to the functioning of departments or facilities in general, information which would be useful for potential students who are considering whether Concordia is the right university for them.
For elective courses especially, the se- lection process is an arduous task. It is often difficult to determine whether you will enjoy a class or its professor from the course description and thus students must attend the first class to find out what the professor is like and what ex- actly taking the course will entail.
This is problematic because it means that if the student chooses not to take the course they registered for they then have to scramble to find a replacement course that still has openings and hope that this new course will be better than the first.
Additionally, students will likely miss some of the new course when switching classes and then have to play catch-up.
Students are constantly being asked to fill out surveys about their impres- sions of Concordia and yet Concordia doesn’t allow students to benefit from the information they are providing. As a result, students are left with doubts as to whether their opinions are actually being heard.
By not releasing survey results, Concordia neglects to give students valuable information as well as the opportunity to judge whether their concerns are being addressed.
