On March 6th at 2pm, I was given the extraordinary chance to attend the Winter Executive Forum where the ASB Senate shares their quarterly survey results with our Executive Leadership Team.

The amazing presentation was given by our ASB President, Rae Watkins. Rae did a fantastic job on this presentation, it was clear, concise and I am able to share the results of the survey with the community of SPSCC. 

The Executive team, members of the DEIC center, Student Government, and Student Life were present. 

The SPSCC Senate plays a huge role in making sure students’ voices are heard and that their ideas are applied. They represent the students of SPSCC, address concerns or questions with administrative operations, promote goals for student success and help students, staff and faculty communicate. 

The Senate surveys started in 2020 during COVID-19. They are open each quarter, except for summer. Great news is that the Winter 2024 Senate Survey received 397 responses! That is the highest yet and we hope this number increases for Spring Quarter 2024. 

The Enrollment data showed most students attend one to four quarters at SPSCC and the majority of students are full time,looking to transfer to a 4-year university or complete their Associate’s degree.

Food & Nutritional Access on Campus

These academic goals don’t come without challenges though. Some challenges discussed in the survey were a lack of food availability on campus with students talking about high prices and yet being left with low quality options, as well as food only being available certain hours in limited locations. As we know students have very different schedules and to help with this problem, The Executive team is planning to help with increasing the hours of operation at the Clipper Coffee Corner for Spring Quarter. 

More food comments included questions and requests; food available later in the evening for evening classes, wanting more transparency about plans for a cafeteria. Currently for Spring Quarter, The Clipper Coffee Corner in Building 22 is open until 4pm Monday-Thursday!

For the future, everyone will continue with this topic as a major priority, since food accessibility is extremely important to SPSCC, the Senate will be advocating continuously since they all agree food is important for the college and its students.  

Tutoring & Academic Aid

Tutoring and getting help for classes was another challenge that students shared. Students reported that the tutors are great, but it’s hard to get an appointment, since it seems the tutoring centers are overwhelmed. Students suggested hiring more Tutors and increasing tutor funding. One of the Executive Team members rebutted that funding was not an issue and that they would work on hiring more tutors. 

Jobs On-Campus

There were several reports of financial hardship getting in the way of student’s academic goals. A lot of them wanted more job publicity for on campus jobs. Especially non-work study jobs. The Sounds Newspaper is a non-work study job on campus, so if you have a passion for journalism and writing, you should apply! You can find this job and more student jobs (including work-study) on campus here: https://www.schooljobs.com/careers/spscc/promotionaljobs

More jobs will be available in Early May for the 2024-2025 academic year, so be sure to keep a lookout! Please feel free to reach out at careers@spscc.edu for more details, questions and how to prepare for the Career and Transfer Day happening on May 15. There will be workshops offered by the ACT, Student Life and the Library leading up to the fair. 

This is the first article following the results of the Student Senate Survey. The next and final part will be published later this week. Come back then to hear about action plans for finances, student resources, and security!