Sustainability survey draws student attention
A new survey about the Facilities Management office has been released to the university community.
On Thursday, students received the 10-question Sustainability Survey, sent out by Shelby Township senior Vincent Cavataio.
“It’s supposed to show what they know, and what they don’t know,” said Steve Lawrence, vice president of Facilities Management.
The survey was distributed to a select group of students via email about a week and a half ago, Lawrence said.
“We should have our results by the end of April," he said.
Not all the questions pertain to what the surveyed know about Facilities Management, but also whether or not they practice a sustainable lifestyle.
Facilities Management has been involved with a number of projects around campus, including the solar panels on the Education and Human Services Building, the parking lots that conserve water and the installation of the automatic light sensors.
“We head up and take care of recycling, energy optimization and other green cleaning,” Lawrence said.
However, the survey has had to go through Human Resources in order for the unions to approve Facilities Management communicating messages to their membership.
Cavataio, a former Student Government Association president, said Facilities Management has been in touch with Human Resources in giving the survey to any employee. Now it comes down to the faculty.
“What we are really hoping for is all the unions to look at it by the end of this week,” Cavataio said.
So far 200 people have taken the survey, most of which were students. Five unions have given the OK to take the survey, including the teacher's and police unions. So far HR has been giving Cavataio updates daily. They are still waiting to hear from NABET, the Faculty Association and Graduate Student Union for approval.
“I've sent (University Communications) the new design that is going out in an email to all students and it will go to all staff and faculty as well,” Cavataio said. “We're just waiting on the approval of all of the unions and then everybody will have it.”
The sustainability survey was distributed to a few different outlets that students use to get people talking about it, Cavataio said.
The survey also asked whether or not the user would like to be informed about Facilities Management’s efforts on campus, which would involve a Facebook page, Twitter account and or a monthly newsletter.
