Since its formation, the Independent Council has attempted to give back to the RPI community. One of the ways in which we do so is through our course surveys. At the end of each semester, the IC hands out surveys to select classes and asks the students to fill them out. The surveys from last semester are currently in the process of being tallied up so that we can get them into the pages of The Polytechnic next month.
You may be thinking to yourself, why do we do this? Doesn’t RPI have surveys of their own? The answer is yes. RPI uses the IDEA surveys, which many of you have seen. These are the pink surveys which ask such questions as, “How has this class promoted cultural diversity?” or “How much laptop usage was there in this class?” These questions can occasionally seem a bit out of place and the results are rarely released to the student body. The results are kept to only a select few people; primarily the professors whose classes the surveys are for and the administrators for their respective departments; herein lies the problem. After taking the time to fill out all these questions and give active feedback, the students do not get to see the final results. Therefore, the IC tries to fill that gap.
Our surveys have been crafted by students and the results are returned directly to the students so that you can see how the different courses “rank up” against one another. These results are a great tool for deciding on what elective courses you wish to take; I know they were helpful to me my freshman year. We primarily poll elective and freshman level classes in an attempt to help students make the best choices for elective courses. You can check out the pages of The Poly next month for the final results.
This past Tuesday, September 30, the Independent Council held a “Meet the IC” event in Mother’s. All the members of the IC were there to answer questions and to listen to any and all who came. There was a decent turnout and all involved had a good time.
If you’re interested in the survey process, or anything related to the IC, send me an e-mail at ic@union.rpi.edu or show up at any of our meetings. The IC meets on Tuesdays at 9 pm in the Student Government Suite of the Union and meetings are open to everyone.
