Speak Up and Be Heard!

When walking to class, or eating in the union, do you ever think of ways life as a student can be improved at UT? Maybe more time between classes, or more UT shuttle buses to run routes? Well it can be difficult for students to have their voices heard on a large campus like UT, so in order to make changes students must get creative. This can include protests, giant signs across campus, headlines in The Daily Texan and the roads through Student Government. These were some of the limited options students had until March 1st when UT President Bill Powers announced “Ideas of Texas”.

President Powers announced the new Ideas of Texas website to students via the university’s campus-wide email system Monday morning.

“The Ideas of Texas will give each of you an opportunity to contribute ideas to enhance teaching, research, student life, and the alumni experience, increase productivity, reduce costs, and improve our effectiveness.”, Powers stated in the email.

The website gives students the chance to log in with their UTEID and password, title their entry as what improvement they would like to see on campus, and space to explain the problem and how the improvement would help the student body and faculty of the university. Other students would then be able to vote “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to the entry.

The university board plans to review entries that have a great number of supporters and try to work them into existence on campus.

“This is a really great site,” Senior kinesiology student Tayler Gill said. “However, I think some entries are ridiculous. I think we have plenty of time to get to class.”

Ideas of Texas had a number of entries within hours of being announced. Of those entries students showed interests in the amount of class transition time, saving the Cactus Café and why the UT tower was lit for certain reasons.

Senior kinesiology major Roger Wills-Amires thinks these entries could really make students think about what can be improved.

“It's about time students have an easier way of being heard on campus.” Wills-Amires said. “We can come up with ideas that can benefit us and the future classes coming behind us.”

The student section of the Ideas of Texas was a recent launch of the faculty and staff version of the site that launched in November. Through the forums like this, it opens up the flow of communication between students, that may feel at times that they are the last to be heard, and those that are higher in standing at the UT and make university-wide decisions.

I urge students to take advantage of the Ideas of Texas site, and get your ideas heard! We aren’t the smallest percentage of this campus. We are by far the largest! If there is something you are passionate about and you think would be a great addition to the campus and will benefit students, please post for others to see. One post can lead to hundreds, if not thousands, of student votes, which in turn leads to change.

Check out the website here.