Following up on last fall's student survey, members of the Student Rights and Interests Committee (SRIC) recently met with several deans to discuss proposed changes to the infrastructure of the student body, including an improved JhuPortal Web site, potential academic credit for extracurriculars and a reorganization of the Student Government Association (SGA).
Though the SRIC, led by junior SGA President-elect Marc Perkins, has been analyzing the results of the "Student Happiness" survey since last semester, they only recently published their White Paper, which reported the results of the survey, and secured a meeting with the deans to voice their recommendations.
Director of Admissions John Latting and Executive Assistant to the President Jerome Schnydman, as well as Deans Susan Boswell, Paula Burger, William Conley, John Bader and Adam Falk were all present at the meeting.
According to Perkins, the team was frustrated that it took the publication of the White Paper to secure a meeting with the deans, but all involved said that the meeting led to several positive resolutions.
Perkins said that the process of helping shape increasingly positive experiences for Hopkins undergraduates starts with the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.
To this end, the SRIC proposed a Hopkins summer program for high school students similar to the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) seminar. Hopkins could "target and recruit" high school students with positions of leadership and thus help recreate the "Hopkins stereotype" in a positive light, attracting similar students to the undergraduate applicant pool.
Latting said that the Office of Undergraduate Admissions already targets students who show potential for leadership and involvement.
"Two of the four ratings we use on each applicant are non-academic and have to do with the contribution students can make to the Hopkins community. We are eager to admit and enroll students who make a difference in some way, and we respond aggressively to them when they apply for admission," Latting wrote in an e-mail to the News-Letter.
Once these students are on campus, the next step, according to Perkins, is ensuring that they get involved in on-campus activities at the start of their first semester.
According to the survey results, "student leaders" see 38 percent more value in their undergraduate experience than uninvolved students and are 22 percent more connected to the school, and Perkins believes students should become involved as early as possible during their undergraduate careers.
While Burger originally took issue with the SRIC's definition of "involvement" in that it considered only students who were registered with on-campus activities and thus excluded students who volunteer off-campus or participate with unaffiliated groups, Perkins said that this is the only quantifiable method by which to measure student involvement.
"Student involvement can't mean playing guitar by yourself in your room because it doesn't create connection with the campus; but if you play guitar for the Hopkins jazz band, you are more in tune with Hopkins because you are giving back to the cultural community," Perkins said.
In order to complete a more thorough study of students involved with Hopkins-sanctioned activities versus students involved with off-campus activities, the SRIC has proposed to conduct a longitudinal study in the coming months.
More immediately, the SRIC wants to ensure that freshmen stay engaged with activities, as many can be overwhelmed by the Student Activities Commission (SAC) fair in the fall and do not become involved until later semesters.
During the meeting, Bader suggested that freshmen are the least involved students on campus because they have fewer opportunities to join groups.
Affan Sheikh, junior senator and member of the SRIC, has proposed to overhaul the presentation of student groups to freshmen, including possibly offering a second SAC fair at the beginning of the spring semester so that freshmen have more time to adjust before getting involved with a campus group.
One mistake many freshmen make, according to Perkins, is in assuming that they should "settle in" first, before involving themselves with student groups.
"Activities are what connect you to your campus in the first place," Perkins said.
The SRIC hopes that the administration will eventually offer academic credit for extracurricular activities, though the deans have yet to commit to this idea.
Additionally, the SRIC hopes to expand social networking devices and facilitate conversation between student groups via an updated version of the JhuPortal, a seldomly-used Web site.
According to a survey conducted by Jason Heiserman, only 7 percent of students say they receive the majority of their Hopkins-related news and information from the JhuPortal.
Perkins hopes that the SGA and the SRIC can work closely with Conley in the coming months to improve the Web site.
"We are working on a calendar function [for the JhuPortal] that will provide a timely list of activities relevant to Homewood undergraduates in the portal ... we have diverted primary effort to the development of a 'one-stop shopping' new student portal for the class of 2013 and incoming transfers," Conley said.
According to Conley, this will consolidate information from other sites such as the Admissions, Registrar and Student Activities Web sites.
Perkins hopes to go beyond this and possibly open the Web site to opportunities for student group advertising and a message thread between student leaders.
The SRIC plans to follow up with another meeting with the deans in the next month.