An online electoral poll will be launched today, Wednesday, 20th February, by the University Research Council (URC). This was announced in the General Faculty Meeting held at the Finster Auditorium on Monday, 18th February. This online survey is part of the wider engagement of Blue Vote 2013, the university’s initiative to promote a thorough electoral and political education campaign within the university and beyond for this May’s midterm local and national elections. The Blue Vote 2013 was launched on 8th February, attended by administrators, faculty and students of the university.
This is the first time that the Ateneo has taken an active and integrated venture into electoral and political education using interactive online technology. As a matter of fact, a website for Blue Vote 2013 was created (bluevote.addu.edu.ph) for this purpose. Likewise, the URC capitalizes the use of this technology (using the moodle) through the conduct of the poll survey which aim is to gather election-related information for envisioned university database, as well as to elicit issues and concerns which the community would like to present to the candidates, both local and national, for consideration in their political platform and agenda of governance.
The online poll consists of both in-campus and off-campus surveys. The in-campus survey will be participated by faculty from all units, students in the college, law school and high school (though optional), as well as the non-teaching staff (NTS) comprising of both agency-based and Ateneo regular personnel. Faculty and students will channel their participation in the survey through the use of their moodle accounts. In the absence of a moodle account, the NTS will manifest their involvement through an interview using an interview schedule/protocol. The conduct of the interview will be handled by seventeen (17) enumerators who are faculty members and NTS coming from the different programs and offices. The URC conducted a training/orientation on 16th February to those who have signified to be part of the enumerators’ pool. The off-campus survey will be implemented on the first week of April.
The URC is in close coordination with the University Engagement and Advocacy Council (UCEAC), the Office of the Academic Vice President (AVP), the Human Resource Management and Development Office (HRMDO), all unit heads, the Arrupe Office of Social Formation, the Office of Student Affairs (OSA) and the SAMAHAN Central Board for the roll-out of the in-campus survey which commences today.
The raw data gathered from both the online survey and direct interview will be presented to the UCEAC on 8th March. The UCEAC and the Arrupe will then use the processed result of the poll in the formation and advocacy initiatives as embodied in Blue Vote 2013. All initiatives that spring from Blue Vote 2013, in particular, are all part of the university’s thrust to prepare the different sectors of the Ateneo community for a more informed decision-making relative to May 2013 elections. Through this election-related engagement, and specifically its utilization of the use of available online technology, the university is gearing toward promoting a wider social consciousness among various stakeholders as a concrete expression of its vision-mission-goals (VMG). (By M. Isabel S. Actub, Arrupe Communications & Advocacy, for the URC)