Student body secretary issues radio survey

A poll designed and publicized by Student Body Secretary Ian Lee has ruffled a few feathers within student government and WXYC, the campus radio station.

Lee sent an e-mail Thursday to multiple listservs asking students to take a poll aimed at gauging their opinion of WXYC.

Officials from student government and the station said they think the process could have been carried out more effectively if Lee had sought the help of more organizations.

“It just seems rushed,” said Student Congress Speaker Deanna Santoro. “Had all branches of student government and WXYC been involved, we could have made sure the poll was more thorough.”

Santoro said WXYC receives feedback from students each semester through multiple avenues, including student call-ins and other station initiatives.

Lee and Student Body Vice President Holly Boardman said the purpose of the poll is to determine the number of students who listen to WXYC and how the station can be improved.

“Quite frankly, a lot of students don’t listen to it,” Boardman said.

The poll provides students the opportunity to voice what type of programming they want WXYC to feature more frequently.

Those who take the poll are allowed to write in a genre under the “other” category or check one of four other options, including news and hip-hop.

But Santoro said this list is insufficient considering the station’s broad range of content.

Lee said he was enabled to initiate the poll, in part, by changes to the Student Code that have given student body secretaries a broader range of power. Those duties include soliciting feedback from students.

Boardman said a significant amount of student fees go to WXYC and that the weekly “Student Body President Radio Show” is one of student government’s most important outlets to reach out to students.

Lee said he intends to release similar polls about different organizations every month.

He said he plans to let the survey run for two weeks and hopes to collect up more than 500 responses, then give the results to WXYC for analysis.

Santoro and WXYC station manager Nicole Campbell said they had no knowledge of the poll before it was released.

Santoro said there is a gap between the mission of the radio station and the wishes of students, and that student government should work to address it. But it should have been a collaborative effort, she said.

Campbell said the survey should not have been publicized through student government listservs.

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.