As students, have you ever felt as though the administration and faculty do not listen to your opinions or views on what going on around campus? Right now, Fordham is offering the chance to change that.

For the first time, Fordham is participating in the leadership survey sponsored by the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership.  Alanna Nolan, assistant dean for Student Leadership and Community Development at Rose Hill and Dorothy Wenzel, director of Student Leadership and Community Development at Lincoln Center are spearheading the project. Fordham is one of approximately 200 other schools partaking in the program this year.

"The purpose of the survey is to really understand the role higher education plays in fostering character formation in terms of leadership development," Nolan said.

The survey will be sent out on Feb. 1 and consists of approximately 40 questions aimed at discovering the effects of getting involved in the extracurriculars at school and learning what reasons students have for not participating in extra-curricular activities. It should take approximately 20 minutes to complete.

The survey was sent to 4,000 randomly selected students between the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses. The survey was also sent to a control group, made of students who are heavily involved on campus, selected by Dean Nolan to have a comparative sample.

"We intentionally, on both campuses, contacted a myriad of students in leadership positions, such as Orientation Leaders, CSA members, the United Student Government, the Campus Activities Board and club presidents," Nolan said.

This allows for Fordham to collect a general consensus from students as well as selected responses from students who are extremely involved and see on what issues they agree or disagree. It was delivered to students from all four grades to allow for a wide range of responses.

"It doesn't necessarily mean that a senior's response would be more helpful than a freshman's because a senior could have decided to get involved their senior year," Nolan said. "On the other hand you could have a freshman involved in RHA, USG, club sports, anything."

The main goal of the survey is to help discover what kinds of programs and workshops Fordham can set in place to help improve skills in areas where students are lacking. It also will help weed out programs and events that are currently in existence but do not benefit to the student body.

"I know students are like, ‘Oh man, I have to fill out another 20-minute survey,' but that's how departments get data to push for funding for programs or to decide what programs and times aren't working for the students so that we know we'll have attendance there," Nolan said.

The Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership distributes the survey once every three years, since sending it out every year does not allow for the results to be reviewed and put into effect. The first year is spent collecting the data and compiling research. Then, the results are sent back to the school where they will be reviewed and interpreted by officials.

The second year consists of applying the data gathered, which consists of putting the programs from which the students would benefit into effect and discarding those that would not.

Once Fordham receives responses, it is able to sort them by grade, which allows officials to specifically see what the sophomore class, for example, as a whole needs as compared to the junior class. The third year consists of theory and reflection on the programs set in to place.

"I appreciate that it's intentionally designed that way because the whole point is you don't want to be sending out surveys, asking students to fill these out and then not doing anything with the data," Nolan said.

The survey will help the school officials learn exactly what students want and need rather than assuming what would be best for them. For example, many people in today's world rely heavily on technology to communicate and have problems speaking with people face to face. If that is one of the areas that appears as weak, OSL&CD officials will work to put together a program that helps boost that skill.

"One of the common phrases in higher education is ‘Meeting students where they are,' but how do you actually do that? What exactly does that mean? We feel that we're benefiting the students by using this survey, distributed by an outside organization who's doing an actual study on leadership development in higher education," Nolan said.

The survey will help Fordham compare its results other schools of higher education, such as Georgetown and Boston College. Fordham is also a part of the Catholic Coalition within the study, which adds additional questions that deal directly with leadership skills related to Catholic values.

Fordham is participating in the first of six batches of surveys that are sent out by MSL, which means the survey will close on Feb. 22.

"You don't want to send out a survey like this during midterms or when everybody is on spring break, because no one's filling it out," Nolan said. "We made sure on our end to have all of our materials in, to allow us to get the first batch."

The pre-note for the survey was sent out on Jan. 31, with the official invitation to take the survey on Feb 1. Students that finish the survey will be entered to win an iPad or one of five $100 Amex gift cards, that will be distributed as part of an incentive program designed to drum up interest and get responses

"I know it's really hard sometimes for students to see [the benefit] some times, but a survey's only good if it's statistically significant," Dean Nolan said. "We need about 20 percent of the population to participate."