In an e-mail sent Thursday to the student body, Moeser said he values student viewpoints and hopes to host a number of informal discussion groups this semester to hear student concerns.
"I want you to know that my colleagues in the administration and I deeply value student input," Moeser wrote in the e-mail. "We will face many challenging issues, and we will make better decisions by hearing many perspectives."
Moeser said the e-mail was not triggered by any one factor but that recent concerns about a lack of student input in decisions over tuition, parking and a proposed satellite campus in Qatar prompted him to contact the student body.
"I wanted to communicate that we do value student opinion," Moeser said Friday. "We have not been perfect in gathering it, but a lot of that has had to do with the timeliness of these issues."
Moeser also said he hopes students will express their concerns to him by communicating with members of the Student Advisory Committee to the Chancellor. "We need to do a better job of communication between student representatives and the general student body," he said. "Most students don't know that they have representatives to voice their interests."
Student Body Vice President Rudy Kleysteuber, SACC chairman, said the committee asked the chancellor to communicate to the student body that he values student opinion -- something Kleysteuber says the members of the committee have known all year.
"(Moeser) has his own vision for our University," he said. "But he doesn't want to leave out student input on the creation of that vision."
As an example of how student views might shape his decisions in the future, Moeser said student concerns influenced his decision -- announced Friday -- not to establish a satellite campus in Qatar.
"Critical to my decision was the feedback I gathered from faculty and from students, especially at the student seminar on Qatar," he said, referring to a class offered to students the end of last semester, whose participants reported to the chancellor.
