With the Idea Fair having taken place on Sept. 24, the Student Advisory Council is working to improve the BYU student experience by implementing campus project ideas given by students at the fair.
Annie Walker, the BYUSA vice president who oversees the Student Advisory Council, said the fair gave students the opportunity to speak with representatives of colleges and departments about campus improvements. This allowed the council to know what projects students do support and what they hope to see from BYU in the future. Walker said the council received 2,032 responses from students at the fair.
“As a student on campus, I feel like there isn't a lot of easy mediums to go through to make change,” she said. “But through the council, it really is the simplest route to make change because you get to be a part of a project. You could be a part of some amazing campaign.”
The fair had eleven booths, nine of which regarded the council's team projects — Transfer Students, International Students, Freshman Experience, BYU Families, Campus Safety, Campus Connection, Spiritual Welfare, Financial Awareness and Making the World Our Campus.
Walker said after the Idea Fair, representatives will choose projects that are focused on student survey responses. The council's teams conduct research on these projects from stakeholders, surveys, focus groups and other universities throughout fall and winter semester.
Laura Bond, the coordinator for the council, said students within the council contact individual departments as well for input and project ideas.
At the end of winter semester, BYU President C. Shane Reese and the President’s Council will listen to these project ideas and give approval if they believe the projects are possible. Walker said even if President Reese does not approve of a project, other departments and stakeholders may choose to take on the project themselves.
“Last year, we had a team working on accessibility,” Walker said. “They wanted to start an audiobook app for textbooks because that doesn't exist yet, so the accessibility office made a position within their office for one of the students who was on the team to work on this project and continue on the project within their office.”
Walker said the council does not reject student ideas unless they’ve implemented the project in the past or if they know the issue can’t be improved, such as BYU parking.
“(Students) want to improve the student experience as a whole but sometimes, they don't know how to do that,” Walker said. “Places like the Idea Fair where you can come, where you can give input, where you can answer surveys is very, very impactful because, at the end of the day, because we spend so much time here, this campus should be like a second home.”
The council's director, Ben White, said he oversees the research process of the council's representatives and project team leads, assists in connecting members of the council to sources and ensuring their project proposals are ready to be considered by BYU administration.
“Becoming BYU is only possible when we know what kind of BYU we need to become,” White said.
The Student Voice branch of the Student Advisory Council also hosted a few booths at the Idea Fair. Ian Atkins, a team lead of the Student Voice branch, said the branch oversees the completion and implementation of council's projects after they have been approved by President Reese. The team is volunteer based, allowing interested students to work as much or as little as they desire.
“We're like, ‘Okay, you guys said you wanted bike racks, you want them to be covered. Great. We're going to actually make sure that that happens,’” Atkins said.
Atkins mentioned volunteer students may also choose their own projects. The project Atkins is currently working on involves campus resource awareness.
“We're trying to consolidate all the campus resources into one easy website,” Atkins said. “You can go there and say, ‘I'm having trouble with mental health.’ All right, we have a drop-down list right here. It's going to tell you about CAPS, what CAPS can do. It can tell you about faculty advisors that you can go talk to.”
Atkins said there is not a projected date for when the website will be completed.
Other team leads for the council are currently researching and working through projects to improve the BYU student experience. Adah Shippen, council lead for the Spiritual Welfare team, said the team is thinking of creating a class to help students overcome faith crises and adjust to post-mission life.
“Once (students) graduate, the retention rate of students as members of the Church goes down a lot,” Shippen said. “We want to try to preempt that a little bit by maybe offering a class that allows students to get better tools, work through some of the more difficult doctrinal questions, have a space where they can talk about things.”
Shippen said the team is also considering teaching how to have better interfaith discussions and promoting involvement in interfaith activities.
“Even though a lot of people serve missions, the kind of go-to thing for talking to people of other religions is kind of proselyting,” Shippen said. “It’s important to also learn how to listen and to just respect other people's religions.”
Bradley Chounlamountry, council lead for the BYU Families team, said the team is currently discussing how to support BYU families. The team is considering a daycare or nursery as well as baby-changing rooms in male bathrooms for fathers to use.
“A lot of students kind of echoed those same sentiments,” Chounlamountry said about his experience at the Idea Fair. “We're excited for this year to be able to see if there's any other ideas or if we can really tackle on the ones that we already had.”
Walker said students interested in becoming involved with the council can apply to be a representative, volunteer with the council's different branches, participate in surveys and focus groups to be advertised on the @byu.students Instagram, and sign up for their monthly newsletter.
Representatives serve on the council during fall and winter semesters and enroll in a two-credit class (STDEV 358R) each semester on Tuesdays and Thursday at 4 p.m. to discuss campus initiatives, according to the Student Connection and Leadership Center. These students represent academic colleges, non-academic campus departments or the general student body.