For the first time in MGCI history, Garneau’s student council organized a survey for the student body to review SAC events. Specifically, SAC asked students to share their experiences with various SAC-hosted events, such as Fall Fest, Clubs Fair, and the Spirit Weeks that occurred throughout the year. Students rated the events’ publicity and enjoyability by responding to thirty-seven multiple choice questions.  SAC opened the survey on 29 April and originally planned to accept responses for one week. However, due to an insufficient quantity of responses, they extended the survey’s closing date to 1 June.

SAC released an online survey to gain student feedback on SAC events. Photo: Russell Ijaya

SAC Chairperson Ali Bokhari created and implemented the survey with the help of staff advisors Mr. Alexander and Ms. Balkissoon. According to Ali, the survey was conducted to provide student feedback to SAC to see what could be improved for the upcoming years. He added that originally, as stated in his campaign for Chairperson, he intended to conduct monthly surveys. However, he later decided to conduct only one at the end of year to decrease redundancy, which would hopefully lead to more student participation in the end.

SAC conducted the survey online, advertising it through Facebook. The survey received one hundred and forty responses in total, including twenty-seven from Grade 9 students, thirty-five from Grade 10, thirty-nine from Grade 11, and thirty-nine from Grade 12. Student feedback showed that the introduction of the MGCI Snapchat filter and the International Show were among the most loved events by students. On the other hand, 77% of respondents did not know about the TTC Fundraiser and 52% were unaware of the Semester 2 Clubs Fair.

Zimman Yousef, a MGCI student who completed the survey, said, “It was fun. I mean it’s good that it includes all the events but it was long.”

However, many students lacked the knowledge to answer some of the events mentioned in the survey. For example, the Athletic Banquet occurred in the middle of the survey answer period. Thus, many of respondents who answered earlier could not review the event accurately.

In the end, Ali was fairly satisfied with the quantity of responses, but added that next year, the survey needs to be advertised more. He also said that one of the potential issues leading to few answers was the survey’s length, saying, “Very few don’t take the time to fill out a lengthy survey. The survey can be split into four parts and published four times instead of one really long survey.”