Whether you’re of the Siskel & Ebert era or the Facebook generation, you’re familiar with the power of a simple "thumbs up."
Since September, the DSU has been harnessing that power with its Soapbox website: a place for students to submit their suggestions for improving life at Dal and to vote for the best ideas — or against the worst ones.
“It’s a platform to show what Dal students care about and, even more than that, what problems they might be having or what they see needing to be improved about the DSU and the university at large,” explains Taylor Quinn, commissioner with the DSU’s Sandbox team, a group of student volunteers dedicated to “organizing things that students really want.”
From now until February 21, the DSU is hosting a contest to encourage students to give the website a try. Cash prizes of $250 are up for grabs in four categories: most popular idea, funniest idea, most practical idea and most creative idea.
In order to be considered for the awards, an idea must have at least 25 “likes” on the site. (See the full rules.)
“We want to generate more interest within the student body — more traffic, more ideas on the site and more people voting on ideas,” says Quinn.
Identifying student priorities
Since Soapbox launched in the fall, students have submitted 244 ideas to the website and voted, thumbs up or thumbs down, almost 10,000 times.
But the website isn’t just an exercise in passive democracy. The DSU has committed to formally considering most popular ideas — the top 10 per cent — and issuing a response, one way or another, as to whether they’re possible. So far, 43 of the ideas have been officially responded to, with more than a dozen fully implemented.
“We try and respond to as many ideas as possible,” says Quinn, noting that in addition to the top 10 per cent of ideas, the Sandbox team will also scan through the website looking for “wild card” suggestions that might not meet the vote threshold but many be cool or worth looking into.
Some of the successful ideas are simple ones, like the instrument and book share that has been set up in the SUB.
“Likewise,” says Quinn, “we had seven or eight ideas around individuals wanting a quiet space in the SUB to nap, have quiet time or pray, so we made the new wellness room in room 306, a space for resting, meditation, yoga or prayer.”
Collaborating to improve student life
When the idea requires buy-in from the university, the DSU sits down with the appropriate offices to see if the idea is feasible. One of the successful ideas, for example, was extending Tiger Patrol hours to match the Killam Library’s later hours during Dal Night Owls, so the DSU reached out to Dal Security to help make it possible.
Other popular suggestions — like bringing a live tiger to campus — don’t quite make the cut.
“The DSU has looked into that before, so we gave an official response saying that for many reasons — animal rights, safety — that’s simply not possible,” says Quinn. “But whether it's possible or not, every idea that meets the threshold will be officially considered, and the people who need to be talked to will be consulted.”
Quinn hopes that the website helps the DSU get a better gauge of the issues and ideas students care about, whether they’re silly or serious.
“Sometimes, it doesn’t take a lot of time or effort to implement an idea that makes a big difference,” he says.
Submit your ideas at http://dsu.soapboxhq.com/
Not this time...
Some of the more popular ideas on Soapbox have been around open streets for pedestrians and cyclists, late night food and outdoor skating. But which ideas have generated the most thumbs down? Here’s a few:
- Making “Gangnam Style” the official Dal song/dance
- Music videos replacing boring newsletters
- Dal glee club
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