Students can now find the perfect campus organization to join by the convenience of their computers.
Student Government’s First Year Experience partnered with Campus Life to create a survey that will match students to organizations and clubs on campus.
The survey –– which launched on Monday –– is available on the websites of Campus Life, SG and, pending approval, FYE.
“Campus Life has given this a lot of attention, as they have been trying to do this for about two years now,” said Alli Robison, SG director of FYE. “Student Government and Campus Life had different visions for this survey, so we have combined forces and ideas to make one great survey.”
The survey was inspired by SG members who attended the SEC exchange last spring at Mississippi State and heard the idea being utilized at Auburn University.
Jackson Voss, Student Government assistant director of FYE, said he thought LSU should implement a similar system when he first heard about the survey and its use at other universities.
“Students often complain that they don’t know how to get involved around campus,” he said. “Though there are already a lot of opportunities, this is just another way of helping students find activities that suit their interest.”
FYE modeled the survey after the Texas A&M online involvement survey.
They plan on working with other schools to improve the University’s survey in the future.
Once students take the survey, the Student Government FYE department will get their results in an email form and manually match them to all registered Campus Life organizations.
“Manually matching each student will be hard work,” said Kathleen Bordelon, Student Government vice president. “However, we are passionate about the need for this survey and are willing to put the time into seeing this survey succeed.”
Once students are matched, they will receive an email from an FYE member in Student Government telling them which organizations suit them.
When they receive an email, the registered president for that organization will be receiving a list of students who may be interested in their organization.
Once students have been given all contact information for the organizations they are matched to, FYE will contact students again a week before the Involvement Fair, telling them where the organizations they were matched to will be located.
The Involvement Fair is an event held at the beginning of the fall and spring semesters by Campus Life. Organizations can recruit new members.
With more than 400 student organizations, the Involvement Fair is the first opportunity of the semester for students to see all that is available to them.
Associate Dean of Students and Director of Campus Life Mary Wallace said student involvement is extremely important at LSU.
National data shows the more students are involved, the more they are retained at a University, she said.
“Student involvement helps build confidence and commitment, which are great competencies to have in the post-LSU work experience,” Wallace said. “Students who are involved are engaged in the University and impact the community in ways that only students can impact. There is more joy, community and pride in LSU. These are all phenomenal things that happen when you are involved.”
Though this survey is geared toward new students, both transfers and freshmen, FYE hopes the software company, Symplicity, can produce an organization-student match automated system using the current technology so organizational matching will be open to everyone.
Speaker of the Senate Aaron Caffarel said student organizations have molded his experience at LSU. Campus involvement has helped teach him more about himself than anything else, he said.
 
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Contact T. N. “King” at [email protected]