Saint Mary's New Fully Integrated Strategic Planning Process: A Response

Written by Aida Karabu

Thumbnail and Header Photo by Mikael Kristenson on Unsplash

On Monday, March 15th, Saint Mary's made an announcement that the university will be embarking on “A fully integrated Strategic Planning Process that encompasses five phases and 15 distinct steps [to] strengthen the mission and vision of Saint Mary’s University.” Organizers have placed a special emphasis on listening to voices in the community, and making sure everyone is represented in the process. The university is looking for volunteers to participate in a Virtual Table Top Focus Group to achieve this goal which will be conducted over Microsoft Teams. The registration form is available here if you're interested, and there are several time slots on April 9th and 12th available, although you need to register before April 6. 

I applaud SMU for this initiative and understand that this is the first step towards greater and more inclusive integration of feedback into the future development of the university, but would like to express my concern that with the current plan’s parameters - it might not be enough. The explanation of the program raises a few questions. Knowing that it’s impossible for every student's voice to be heard in a meeting or call, SMU should still acknowledge that every student’s voice does need to be heard - including the ones that may not be willing to volunteer for a focus group. The truth is, although technically any student can volunteer - there are a lot of students who simply won’t be able to volunteer in this kind of group. Some students don’t enjoy group conversations of this nature. Moreover, some students might find it uncomfortable sharing university complaints in front of staff and faculty in a conference call. 

As you can imagine, many students aren't comfortable telling someone with the education, authority, and experience that President Summerby-Murray has to say, "I'm on the verge of a mental breakdown because of some of the policies you supported" or "I spent 3 years at this school, and I have a degree now, but I'm $18,834 in debt. I don't feel any closer to my goals because I don't know what they are or even who I am." 

A parallel to this would be getting your food at a restaurant. Nobody wants to look at the waiter and say “the food was too salty,” so they just smile and say “it was good!” But that doesn’t mean their voices are less important, or worthy of being heard. Just because difficult topics are hard to talk about and express, that does not mean they are any less important. That is why it is so important that they are heard and something is done about them. It is also important that somebody take accountability for these issues.  

There are already entire pages online (@smu.complaints) dedicated to the anonymous sharing of student complaints, and concerns with the purpose of making sure student voices are heard, unadulterated and unpolluted. Although some of them might be a bit “Oh my prof is such a hardass,” that's the nature of every anonymous complaint box.

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

There is one important factor to sharing complaints that the university has overlooked. For a student to feel comfortable enough to share a complaint, there has to be a sense of security. Specifically, a sense of security that students won't be told their complaint is invalid, unimportant, nonexistent, or somehow their fault. 

One of the greatest deterrents to honest feedback and complaints is this lack of security. Circling back to the program proposed by SMU, imagine if a student is asked for feedback they want to say something like, "Dalhousie introduced the addition of pass/fail to release some of the academic pressure on students in response to unexpected virtual learning and I would really like it if SMU made similar concessions. I think it would add a bit of leniency and compassion towards students who are having a bad time." Now imagine that student worries they will be met with a response along the lines of; "Sometimes life is hard, and you just have to carry on through. That's just how we do things, and I've been doing this a long time. We understand; here is the contact for campus counselling. You'll get through this." Such a response wouldn’t address the issue at all and would leave students feeling unheard. As such, out of this fear, most students would rather not give any feedback at all. 

Many students feel that the mindset from older faculty and staff seems to be, “I had it tough so why should you have it easy? If you have a problem with the way things are - then that’s life and I’m sorry I can’t do anything for you.” 

Some people believe that because the admin has a lot of experience in educational administration, they are somehow more in tune with student needs. And the fact is, none of these administrators have been students during a pandemic. Student needs are dynamic and fluid - they change with the times and technology - and we all know there has been a lot of change lately. 

Although the program proposed by SMU is a good idea in theory, there are supplemental methods needed. I propose that a university-organized and monitored system be created where all students, staff, and faculty can make anonymous complaints, queries, and concerns online, which everyone has access to. If there is a student complaint that many students have, like the state of poor wifi on campus, everyone can see how many people have the same complaint (although anonymous). Then, there can be a platform for issues where the university can share what actions have been taken to address the problem, and what plans have been put in place to solve it and prevent it from happening again. This way, there is also a form of accountability. The university doesn't have to keep getting bombarded with complaints about things they are already aware of and working on, and students can see the work that the university has been doing in response to their complaints. 

I believe that the university does care about student voices. This focus group feels like a good start. Even so, the voices of people who perhaps aren't able to share their perspectives in a group are just as important. An online anonymous platform is a good place for the university to start to listen to all voices in the Saint Mary’s Community.