Drew students and community members have a new outlet for their concerns about campus this week in the form of a brand-new Student Complaints and Concerns hotline devised by Commuter Senator Thomas Jenkins (‘27).
Jenkins commented that real change can only be made through the initiative of students, and that an “easier outlet for that” was essential for tangible progress to be made. He said that while student responses would be recorded automatically into a spreadsheet, that sheet would be checked manually to ensure accuracy. He also highlighted that the hotline is not for emergencies, saying that responses may be delayed and encouraging people to call 911 if any life-threatening emergency arises or if they are in active danger.
The hotline, currently hosted using Google Voice, operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and callers will be greeted with a recorded voicemail of Jenkins leaving instructions on how to use the service.
Jenkins also emphasized the anonymity of responses to the hotline, highlighting that phone numbers of callers are encrypted and details anonymized.
“Anyone in Student Government can pull up” the automatically generated transcript of a call, he said, and the concerns in it will be relayed to the rest of the Senate by whichever Senator has reviewed it. He encouraged students to use it to relay any issues they might see on campus, because “if students [themselves] don’t use the hotline…there’s not much there.”
The phone number for the hotline is (973) 936-8173. Any member of the Drew community with a concern, comment or compliment that they wish to bring to Student Government’s attention on campus is welcome to dial anytime.
Sabr Keres-Siddiqui is a junior majoring in political science and double minoring in sociology and anthropology.