RHA Plans to Use Survey Results to Serve Students Better

RHA officials say the results of the survey, which covered issues affecting students on campus, will be used to determine how University officials and the RHA can serve students better.

RHA president David Cooper said he was pleased that 12 percent of the student body participated in the survey, even though it was not technically a random sample. "For an online survey, 12 percent is actually huge," he said.

The survey was available on RHA's Web site for about a week and was publicized by a mass e-mail sent to the entire student body encouraging students to participate.

The study showed that 96 percent of students who took the survey had heard of RHA but were unclear about the organization's functions. Sixty percent thought the RHA was in charge of overseeing resident assistants, and 47 percent thought RHA handled housing assignments.

The Department of Housing and Residential Education oversees both resident assistants and housing assignments.

Cooper said he was surprised by these results. "I really thought we did a better job conveying what we did," he said.

Another unexpected aspect of the survey was that 91 percent of respondents have a car in Chapel Hill or Carrboro, Cooper said. But 83 percent of respondents expressed an interest in the possibility of a taxi service paid for by students' UNC ONE Cards, so Cooper said RHA officials will talk to cab companies to try to negotiate a contract.

"Most people are in favor of it but would use it rarely, which is a bad combination," Cooper said. "Therefore, I don't know if the taxi service will take in the extra blow of the ONE Card use fee."

The use fee would cover costs the cab company would have to pay for swiping a ONE Card because the University gets money whenever students use their cards. The cab company might charge extra, similar to services like TarHeel Takeout, Cooper said.

On the issue of night parking, 56 percent of respondents said they would purchase a night parking sticker at a reasonable price, but 79 percent said that a reasonable price is $0 to $35. But nobody who responded would consider paying the $363 figure being discussed by the Transportation and Parking Advisory Committee. Survey results pertaining to the possibility of paying for night parking might be shared with TPAC, Cooper said.

The survey portion regarding tuition showed that 32 percent of students are in favor of a tuition increase used to increase faculty salaries, but 47 percent said the biggest increase that is acceptable is $0 and only 4 percent said more than $600 is acceptable. Cooper also said responses about tuition will be shared with Chancellor James Moeser.

Cooper said next time RHA officials plan the survey, they will change some of the questions to make them more direct. He said the survey was created solely by students, so it is not perfect, but he said he hopes the questions can be more clear next time.

He also said there were too many answer options on this survey, which is the reason it took a long time to tally the results. Each question was divided into yes or no answers, and results were calculated with ones and zeros, Cooper said.

The survey did not track Internet protocol addresses, so students could have responded multiple times, but officials from the Office of Institutional Research have said multiple responses are usually not a problem, Cooper said.

"I believe the responses and calculations are very accurate."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.