Student Body President Matt Kopp addressed the Student Senate last Wednesday regarding Czerwiec and the ROTC. Photo by Nick Nelson/The Dakota Student

At the Student Senate meeting this week, Sara Nissen, Director of Student Affairs Marketing, spoke about a survey completed by students at the beginning of the school year. The survey focused on how to best communicate with students about upcoming events and opportunities on campus.

The top four results in order were email, the UND website, texting, and social media.

Now, the student affairs marketing advising team is using the results from the survey to better communicate with the student body. The marketing advising team is made up of students that are willing to have conversations about communication. It’s through their input that Student Affairs Marketing is hoping to validate the survey results and improve communication with students.

One of their current ideas is an online newsletter in the form of a blog that will show upcoming events on campus in chronological order, and it will include links to websites with more information.

“One of the benefits of the online newsletter is that it has an ‘add to my calendar’ button, for those of us who live and breathe by our calendar,” Nissen said.

One of the main reasons  the Student Affairs Marketing office is trying out this new page is because there are numerous pages for UND on Facebook and other social media sites which are all separated. This would be one way to consolidate all of those pages into one simple site that is easily accessible.

The new online newsletter will be up within the next couple weeks, possibly completing a test run in early April.

The Student Affairs Marketing Team is open to suggestions or ideas from any student.

In other news, Student Body President Matt Kopp is looking for students who regularly ride the shuttle bus to test out the updated shuttle bus tracking app. If interested, email him at [email protected].

A resolution titled SR 1516-13 was approved and passed at the Student Senate meeting. According to Kopp, the resolution served two purposes.

“The purposes are to support the ROTC program’s ability to perform exercises on campus and for UND English Professor Heidi Czerwiec to publicly apologize for her comments about the ROTC program at UND,” Kopp said.

Last week, Czerwiec called 911 after spotting “two figures with guns” from her office window on the UND campus. The figures were ROTC students practicing their maneuvers in the quad on campus.

When told that the students will be doing drills over the next couple of weeks, Czerwiec stated that she will call 911 every time she sees them, despite acknowledging they pose no threat.

“We’re already under financial and emotional attack. We don’t need to feel under physical attack, too,” Czerwiec stated in her letter the Grand Forks Herald.

The ROTC program has been on  campus for 128 years and the Student Senate agreed that the program plays a significant role on campus.

With UND going to the Frozen Four next week, Student Involvement is hosting a watch party in the Gretzky building on Thursday, and another will be held on Saturday if UND advances to the national title game. There will be food and drink provided, and more information will be provided soon.

Journey Gontjes is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected]