Students will now be able to keep track of their filed grievances with the new grievance online tracking system installed in the College of Arts and Sciences (COAS).
“This makes solving an issue more interactive,” said Llewingtina King, Arts and Sciences Student Council (ASSC) executive vice president. “Issues will be handled instead of just being received.”
Through this notification system, students will have the opportunity to know the status of their grievances via e-mail and the steps taken to address them.
A description and display of the new grievance method can be found in the ASSC online newsletter, “The Greenlight Gazette.” The three steps include received, pending and resolved. The red light indicates the grievance being filed and the issue up for investigation. The yellow light lets the student know when proper authorities are notified and a plan to resolve the issue is designed. The green light represents the issue being resolved and the grievance report is filed for future reference.
According to Jon-Michael Washington, director of student advocacy in ASSC and creator of the online grievance system, it was suggested in the “Greenlight” agenda to have a three-step grievance process.
Now council has taken steps to the Web so students have the ability to follow the actions taken on their grievance. “I took the original idea and added content to it,” Washington said. “So far it has been effective, we have received about 200 grievances during our two grievance days in ASSC week.”
Washington said the online system has not been implemented on the Web site yet but council is in the process of putting the grievances on a blog for students to track them. The council has taken extra steps to ensure that each student grievance filed will be taken into consideration and evaluated.
“This is definitely an interactive grievance system,” said Dorien Blythers, ASSC executive president. Blythers said this is an innovative method and will help students in COAS to further keep track of their complaints or concerns. “It gives students the opportunity to know the status of their grievances as opposed to just filing a grievance and not being able to fully be sure that their complaint has been dealt with,” Blythers said.
“I usually do not have problems that need to be rectified outside of my daily life, but I know that if I do have a problem or concern in COAS, I will be able to follow it,” said Ariel Benny, a sophomore English major.
Other plans for council advocating on behalf of the students in COAS include a town hall meeting where issues that students are facing will be discussed, a meet and greet, and in addition, a breakdown of the social sciences. Within this program, students will be able to get a more concentrated aspect of their major.
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