By Rob Tokanel, News Staff

‘ The Resident Student Association (RSA) General Council passed a resolution May 20 to administer a new tray preference survey, citing biased wording of the Student Government Association’s (SGA) original survey questions.
The result of SGA’s spring 2009 Food Preferences Survey prompted the organization to submit a formal recommendation to the university May 19 advocating the absence of trays from the new International Village dining hall in the fall. SGA president-elect Ryan Fox said 65 percent of the 2,100 students surveyed said they supported removing trays.
The RSA legislation claimed the survey ‘had a clear bias, providing three reasons why trays had a negative impact but no reasons why trays are beneficial to students,’ and thus could not be considered a ‘legitimate representation of student opinion.’
Fox said RSA had a chance to be involved in the process of creating the original survey, which was established in mid-March. Although there was no confirmed deadline, administration held off purchasing the trays long enough waiting for a recommendation, and it is time to act, Fox said.
‘We have submitted our recommendation to open International Village with no trays, leaving them in Stetson East and West,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to work with RSA on this because of the timing.’
As a result, RSA has requested Northeastern ignore the recommendation. Instead, it suggested students be resurveyed with the question, ‘should the option of taking a tray to exist in the dining hall?’
RSA Executive Vice President Matt Soleyn said the legislation was passed in the interest of finding out how the student body really felt about the issue.
‘The Food Preferences Survey was a long survey,’ he said. ‘This will be a one-question survey with a yes or no option. It will be a fair question that is direct.’
The legislation suggests a recommendation be made based on the new data in the survey. If results are inconclusive or a new survey is not administered, it suggested the recommendation be that trays are available in International Village in the fall and remain in all other dining halls.
Soleyn said RSA has received no formal statements about the legislation from administration or SGA, but he hopes to include both in the survey and recommendation process.
‘We would like to have SGA work with us and support that reassessment, but if they won’t, we’re going to move ahead and do it without their support,’ he said.