The Campus Culture Task Force Committee, the group charged with making recommendations to Chancellor James Oblinger about how to improve the campus climate, has been receiving feedback from students about how to move forward with its recommendations.

The deadline for students and community members to go online and provide feedback to the group is Feb. 16.

Jose Picart, vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion, said the amount of feedback to this point has been limited.

“We’ve had a trickle of feedback from the online process but not a whole lot,” Picart said. “I’d say just a couple of handfulls of responses.”

Picart also said the feedback has focused on the Free Expression Tunnel more than the initial report the task force issued Jan. 16.

“To be honest, most of the feedback we have gotten has been commentary,” he said. “A lot of the comments have been reinforcing things we’ve already heard about the Free Expression Tunnel.”

The initial report, issued Jan. 16, made recommendations in three areas on campus, campus climate, Free Expression Tunnel and Brickyard practices and student code of conduct.

Picart said the overwhelming majority of the feedback has asked the task force to not close or restrict the Free Expression Tunnel.

“Some people thought we were discussing or planning to close the Free Expression Tunnel, even though that is not the case,” he said.

Heather Cutchin, a graduate student in poultry science and member of the task force, said the Free Expression Tunnel issue is just one item the group is considering.

“When we get together, each subcommittee gets to present its details,” she said. “We’re giving fair time to all three of the subcommittees.”

Cutchin, who also serves as the president of the Graduate Student Association, said she has received thoughts from graduate students through e-mail about how to handle the Free Expression Tunnel.

“I got 30 or 40 responses from graduate students, mostly about the Free Expression Tunnel,” Cutchin said. “A lot of graduate students are opposed to closing the Free Expression Tunnel or restricting free speech at all.”

Cutchin said one of the main challenges the committee has faced so far is recognizing both sides of the discussion about the Free Expression Tunnel.

“There is such strong feelings about what happened after President Obama was elected,” she said. “So it’s been very hard to explain why to keep the tunnel open and not restrict it when people are so strongly sensitive to these types of things.”

Picart said the Feb. 24 meeting to finalize recommendations will allow the task force to discuss all of the feedback it has received.

“We just have to keep sorting through the feedback,” he said. “We’re going to keep talking to community groups. Other than that, we’re going to keep vetting it as broadly as possible.”

Other ideas presented in the initial recommendations included changing the Student Conduct Code and the expansion of diversity education across campus for students.

Cutchin said her experience on the task force has allowed her to recognize how different people hold differing opinions.

“It’s been great seeing the ideas people come up with and seeing how sensitive people are to different ideas,” she said.