ByRaven TysonAssistant City Editor
The majority of faculty, staff and students do not have majorobjections to building an entertainment village on the campus’borders, according to a recent survey.
The survey, conducted by the San Diego State Foundation lastspring, gauged people’s opinions of The Paseo, a planned area on thesouthern edge of campus that would include restaurants, shoppingcenters, a hotel, a movie theater and student housing.
In the next five years, the Foundation is hoping to build ThePaseo, once called the “Mixed-Use” project, which will reconstructthe area bordered by College Avenue, Montezuma Road, Campanile Driveand the Aztec Walkway.
The survey was sent to almost 4,000 staff and faculty members viaSDSU e-mail accounts. The survey was also sent to 16,000 studentswith Rohan e-mail accounts.
Only 440 faculty and staff members and 800 students responded tothe e-mail.
However, students were offered an incentive. Scholarships totaling$1,000 were awarded to six students at random. One student won a $500scholarship.
Assistant philosophy professor John Berteaux, who teaches anethics course on campus, said although he didn’t know the entireprocess that the SDSU Foundation used, offering scholarships tosurvey participants could be questionable.
Berteaux said there could be a number of problems paying peoplefor survey responses, but there are also ways the Foundation mightresolve those issues.
He said if people are aware of the incentive and then are supposedto respond to questions regarding that topic, they could skew theiranswers. Most people would tell the surveyors what they want to hearin order to get a prize, Berteaux said.
“We didn’t think there was any conflict of interest at all,” saidFred Pierce, College Community Redevelopment manager.
Pierce said there wasn’t a conflict of interest because studentswere selected at random.
According to the survey, 80 percent of SDSU students and 75percent of faculty and staff have no major objections to the project.
In another question, 67 percent of faculty and staff said theywere somewhat or extremely supportive, 22 percent were somewhat orextremely unsupportive and 11 percent were neither supportive norunsupportive.
For students, 62 percent were somewhat or extremely supportive, 22percent were somewhat or extremely unsupportive and 16 percent wereneither supportive nor unsupportive.
Faculty, staff and students also believed the project wouldbenefit the appearance of the university and enhance the studentexperience on campus.
Marketing professor Donald Sciglimpaglia, who conducted theresearch for the survey, said the results were a good representationof the student population.
“I was very pleased,” Sciglimpaglia said. “It worked better than Ithought. I only expected 400 to respond.”
However, Sciglimpaglia said there was a twist to the results. Thee-mails were originally sent via Rohan to 16,000 accounts, which isabout half of the student population. From that, half of thosestudents had an active account — meaning one out of four studentswere sent the survey. Only one out of 10 of those responded, which isabout a 10 percent reply rate.
Even with high support numbers, faculty staff and students hadtheir concerns. Top on the list — traffic. Forty-nine percent offaculty and staff, and 37 percent of students felt the project wouldhave a negative or very negative effect on street traffic congestionaround campus.
Pierce said traffic consultants have concluded the opposite. Theconsultants said the project will actually reduce traffic congestionby taking commuter cars off the road at peak hours because morestudent housing will be built within walking distance to campus.
Pierce also said the community would utilize The Paseo in theevening and weekend hours, instead of busy school hours during theweek.
Biology junior Trayveon Johnson said he is concerned about localbusinesses possibly being forced out to build the project in additionto traffic.
“Some businesses will have to decide if they want to sell,” hesaid. “I have mixed views. Some things will be a convenience forstudents on campus, but traffic could be a problem.”
