The Brown & White

Last Friday, Lehigh's Strategic Thinking Initiative launched a blog to solicit feedback from students, faculty and staff about the future of Lehigh.

This online forum, which can only be accessed by entering a Lehigh login account, poses six different questions that focus on topics such as research and graduate education, student life and learning and faculty and staff.

Almost all of the questions posted to the blog ask viewers to look into the future and imagine Lehigh in 2018.

The purpose of this is for people to discuss the possible changes that have been made, good and bad, and their effects on the focus group.

The idea of using student feedback to devise a 10-year plan for Lehigh is positive, but the Strategic Thinking Initiative needs to think of a more strategic plan to advertise and solicit this feedback.

Other than the university-wide e-mail, which was probably immediately deleted by a large percentage of the student body, the "Transforming Lehigh" blog has not been well advertised.

If the university doesn't work to make sure students are aware of this online forum, it is very possible that only campus leaders will take the opportunity to share their opinions and ideas.

Of course, campus leaders, such as the class presidents, the president of Student Senate or the president of ASA, have well-informed and intelligent opinions, but they are not the only students with something important to say.

In addition, many of the questions are long-winded and confusing. Some ask students to develop evidence to support certain statements about Lehigh's future.

This is certainly not conducive to facilitating participation from a notoriously apathetic campus.

Lehigh prides itself in being a very prestigious university with well-rounded students who, in addition to their academic work, are involved in extracurricular activities such as Div. I sports, honors societies, Greek life, volunteer work and more than 300 clubs.

Frankly, many students (and probably many faculty and staff members) do not have the time or desire to sit down and construct a well-researched essay to help the university decide what changes to make for Lehigh, especially since these changes likely won't be made until most students are long gone.

Currently, the blog requires a Lehigh login to not only view the blog, but also to make and reply to comments.

Instead of asking students to imagine 10 years into the future, open the blog to alumni - they have been removed from the Lehigh bubble and have had time to reflect on the changes that have been made since their graduation.

If the university really wants feedback from a large sample of the faculty, staff and student body, they need to update this blog so it is more user friendly.

Make the blog open to all of the Lehigh community, past and present, make the questions interesting and simple and advertise the opportunity so students, faculty and staff want to make the time to share and discuss their opinions.