"That's the Undergraduate Council of Students, right?" responded Shaun Verch '11 when asked his opinion of UCS. "Yeah, I haven't really heard a lot about it."
Verch isn't alone. A recent Herald poll found that while 39.3 percent of undergraduates said they somewhat or strongly approve of UCS, 31.6 percent of students said that they have no opinion of the council.
The Herald poll was conducted from Nov. 5-7 and has a 3.9 percent margin of error with 95 percent confidence. A total of 621 Brown undergraduates completed the poll, which was administered as a written questionnaire to students in the University Post Office at Faunce House and in the Sciences Library.
UCS President Michael Glassman '09 said he thinks the poll indicates that UCS needs to do a better job communicating with the student body. But, he said, he wouldn't read too much into the results.
"I think it obviously highlights an ongoing challenge for us that people are skeptical about us, and we always need to be doing a better job about communicating and letting people know the good things that we are doing," Glassman said.
More important than the current poll results, Glassman said, is what has changed between this fall's poll and the Herald poll conducted last fall and what the results will be next spring.
"The fall number is always lower than the spring number, which makes sense," he said. "Everyone has been here a semester longer. It's more likely that they've seen something UCS did or interacted with us more."
But according to the Herald poll, the students who have been on College Hill the least time - first-years - approve of the council most strongly. 45.4 percent of first-years strongly or somewhat approved of UCS, whereas only 39.3 percent of sophomores, 35.4 percent of juniors and 36.9 percent of seniors answered that they strongly or somewhat approve of the council.
The percentage of students in each class who selected the option "Don't Know/No Answer" was fairly consistent among class years - 32.9 percent of first years, 31.8 percent of sophomores, 34.0 percent of juniors and 33.6 percent of seniors.
UCS Communications Chair Gabe Kussin '09 said UCS will continue to work to improve its image among the student body and make students more informed of the council's activities.
"It falls on us to really get out there and say what we're doing," Kussin said.
But some students told The Herald that they are not interested in the council's actions, explaining that their lack of opinion on UCS stems from general apathy about the council.
"Honestly, I don't really care about them. I see it in the paper and stuff like that but I pretty much skip over it," said Brian McNary '08.
For others, the lack of information about UCS has led them to believe the council has not been accomplishing much.
"I think UCS in general is pretty ineffective," said Marc Frank '09. "I'm not totally familiar with all that they do, but as a student I can't think of a time they've ever really affected my life or effected change in a way I can conceive of as better, so I don't really pay much attention to it."
Glassman said the council hopes to change that sentiment over the next semester.
"We have a lot of people who are really excited and actually do a really good job and put together some really cool projects," he said. "Most students don't really know what we do. We tried to do that - publishing those agendas was part of it,"
"We're going to be working really hard the rest of the semester and all next semester to get this image up," Kussin said.
