As part of the Student Government Association’s effort to gauge the feelings and desires of the student body it represents, many students will soon find themselves taking part in a survey. A survey of about 40 questions will be administered to 500 students in selected classes within the next two weeks.

The survey is the brainchild of SGA president Brent Callais.

“We want to know what the students need, but it’s hard for us to find out exactly what the students want overall,” he said.

Callais said he and Alcie Maxwell, director of student rights and grievances for the SGA, composed and edited the survey with the help of Dr. Eugene A. Dial, vice president for student affairs and adviser to the SGA; Judy W. Daniels, dean of student life and Dr. Martin Simpson, professor of sociology.

“[The survey consists of] a lot of questions that we figure we know the answers to, but we just want to make sure,” Callais said.

“One of the questions is `Do you think women and men are treated fairly at Nicholls?’ You know, we feel that might not be a problem, but, if 80 percent of women say they’re not treated fairly, that’s something for us to look at.

“But, the main goal is so that we can plan our entire year. A lot of what’s going to come back, we know we can’t correct. But we have such a good working relationship with the administration, we hope we can correct almost all of what we find.”

Callais said there are some questions dealing with residence halls.

“Those are for our plans next year for the tech fee committee, because the dorm students have been complaining about the slow modems in the dorms.

“So, that’s why we want this information. When we go in front of the tech fee committee, we can say, `Look, 90 percent of students in the dorms say that it’s inadequate, the Internet connection they have.'”

Callais said the SGA decided not to cover the issue of parking on campus.

“We know that if we put parking, it would come back 100 percent [saying there is a parking problem.]

“We can’t solve the parking problem,” Callais said.

Larry Howell, director of institutional research, will select the classes in which the survey will be administered.

“I talked to Mr. Howell, and after the fourteenth class day, when the classes are finalized, he’s going to scientifically select the classes to get the perfect breakdown,” Callais said.

He said Howell will attempt to select the classes whose rosters best reflect the population of the entire University based on factors including gender, age, race, student status and whether or not the students live on campus.

“It’s very scientific,” Callais said of Howell’s methods.

“He usually calculates all the data and issues a report, but Dr. Simpson’s classes are learning about that. So, we’re going to allow them to calculate data,” he said.

Callais said this will be a change for Simpson’s students since they usually calculate fake surveys Simpson assigns them.

“He’s an expert in surveying,” Callais said of Simpson.

Callais said the original draft of the survey consisted of almost 80 questions, but the number was cut almost in half so that the interests of students would be maintained.

“Students are not going to want to sit down and answer 75 multiple choice questions,” Callais said.

He said the results should be made public within a few weeks.

“As soon as Dr. Simpson gets it to us, we are going to send a copy to all deans, vice presidents, Dr. [Donald] Ayo, The Nicholls Worth [and] KNSU. We’re going to make the results public, and we’re going to put it on our web page,” Callais said.

“[Simpson] said by midterms we should have the results.”

The SGA website can be accessed at www.nicholls.edu/sga