How large is your school, Suzanne? What methods do you use to assure seeing every student every day? Sounds like a daunting task.
What are these intra-term opportunities to talk with faculty and staff?
To assure that students expectations are being met and that they are satisfied we do surveys twice a term so that students get the chance to let us know if there are any problems or things they do like. If students come to us with concerns we make sure the student comes first and that we do a follow up. We have started to offer tutoring sessions for students who need help and students who have ride problems we offer a program called rideshare.
Our students are given a survey at the end of term. However, during the course of the term they are given the opportunity to talk with the instructors, program directors, and the Academic dean regarding whether or not their expectations are being met.
Our school supplies us with the most up to date equipment to meet and exceed the expectations of the student, plus at the end of each 3 week session, the student is given an opportunity to give us feedback about their previous 3 week course.
Each Program Director (5) in addition to the Academic Dean interact directly. Of course, all departments work together to ensure the satifaction of the student. The results are used in employee evaltuation. They are a large portion.
How do you stay abreast of student concerns and instructor opinions?
This sounds like a very comprehensive survey. How many questions? How long does it take students to complete? Do they take it seriously? Is it the same each academic period?
You folks do a very thorough job of tracking. How many people does it take to do this monitoring? Are the results used in employee evaluations? How do establish standards for performance?
My institution communicates regularly with the students regarding expectations of courses and programs. As a Program Director, I am required to stay abreast of my students concerns and the instructors opinions and concerns regarding expectationsa and/or satisfaction.
For one, we survey the student population at the midway point in the term. The survey addresses every department, including admissions, financial aid, education staff and faculty. It even addresses the classroom environment, both tangible and intangible, to better assess how all expectations can be quantified and met. In addition we have speakers that come in to discuss what resources are availabel to them should they need help developing a coping mechanism to overcome life's obstacles. We feel it is essential for the school's growth to assess our progress by the expectations of our clients.
Our school does several things to monitor the satisfaction level of the students. The first step is to ensure that they receive correct information from the admissions team. Student retention is tracked by admissions rep. Each student is assigned a student advisor who provides support throughout their program. Retention is tracked by student advisor. Faculty are observed each quarter to ensure that instruction is engagning and additional support and encouragement is provided to each student. Feedback is provided on this observations and there are discussions between supervisor and faculty member on areas for improvement. Faculty retention is tracked to identify trends by course, by program and follow-up with areas that need improvement to provide additional support to students.
Before someone enrolls, there are a few interviews to ensure that the expectations they have are realistic. Once they have started, we do use module surveys to gauge classroom climate, however, to gauge campus climate, it is the responsibility of everyone to get to know the student. From reception to other instructors, everyone knows everyone. We find that sets a campus climate of friendliness. As the Campus Director my job is to ensure that students see me everyday even if it is just to say hi. Students know we are accessible. I know that for larger institutions, this would be harder to do. All students go through on going orientation and are closely monitored during the initial 30 days and first exams.
We as well rely on the student surveys and we have a student town hall meeting. We let them submit their questions, at the student meeting we address the concerns and any issues that the students are having.
There are two sessions Loren. The first involves every new student and the second are the "breakout" sessions for each program.
John Maloney
Many students have been reluctant to share contact information when they know that it might be used to track them down. How do you get them to participate?
What do you mean that you tie final course evaluations to viewing final grades? Does this mean that students don't get their grades unless they complete the survey?
What's covered in the student forums? Do they meet with individual sections vs an assembly format? How well do the students respond to this opportunity?
Great to hear about the focus on meeting expectations. How do your Student Services coordinators make their contact with the students?
We have the usual quarterly student surveys that give us input on whether we are living up to the students' expectations. These are taken seriously. The Deans review the surveys and then meet with each faculty member each quarter and review student responses to their classroom instruction. We also look at student comments on other staff, the facility, etc.
Another approach, to determing whether we are meeting student expectations, is the implementation of interdepartmental shadowing. In one such case we are having faculty sit in on admission's intake on a new potential student. The faculty member can observe what the admissions rep is telling the student and realize what kind of student expectations are needed to be met from that perspective.
