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University
gets poor results in survey ranking academic challenge Faculty members expressed concerns about the university’s poor results in the academic challenge category of the 2001 National Survey of Student Engagement to Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Don Mills at the Faculty Senate meeting Thursday. Mills said the university should be concerned about its performance. “I think (the survey) gives us an opportunity to find out what the experience is like for our students,” he said. “Students may not be viewing things the way the faculty is.” The survey, administered by the Indiana University Center for Post-Secondary Research and Planning last spring, randomly polled approximately 210 freshmen and 245 seniors about their college experience, said Angie Taylor, director of alcohol and drug education, who is studying the survey’s results. The survey was divided into five categories: Level of academic challenge, active and collaborative learning, student interactions with faculty members, enriching educational experiences and supportive campus environment. Mills said the NSSE, which evaluates the students’ class assignments, campus involvement and interaction with others on campus, provides different information than the other national surveys in which TCU normally participates. “It’s different from other surveys because it does not measure attitudes or satisfaction,” Mills said. “It measures what students actually do.” According to “The College Student Report,” released in early fall 2001, freshmen scored 49.9 points in the academic challenge category, three points below the national average. Taylor said of the freshmen surveyed nationwide in that category, 80 percent of them performed better than TCU freshmen, while TCU seniors scored 55.4 points, 1.2 points below the national average in the same category. According to “The College Student Report,” freshmen scored 4.7 points below the national average in the active and collaborative learning category while seniors finished one point above the national average. Mills said the overall college experience cannot be determined by just one category’s results. “I want us to recognize that a truly great university is going to have better scores in all five implements,” Mills said. “The quality of the college experience depends on academics, opportunities in the community and with internships. Scales are not usually exclusive from each other.” Mills said TCU did well in sections dealing with enriching educational experiences and supportive campus environment. “Seniors had more interaction with faculty than freshmen as would be expected because of more focus in major,” he said. In the remaining three survey categories, TCU ranged at or above the national averages according to “The College Student Report.” Taylor said 470 different schools across the United States participated in the survey last year including some schools often compared to TCU, such as the University of Tulsa, Tulane University, Baylor University and Rice University. “While it would be nice to compare to specific Texas schools, we see ourselves as a national university, so comparing to other schools like us on a national basis certainly provides us with good comparative data,” Mills said. “Ultimately we will compare ourselves to ourselves.” Mills
said it is this comparison that makes participation in the survey
over time important. Mills said it costs the university $6,000 to $7,000 to participate in the survey. “Every survey no matter what it is, is a snapshot in history,” Mills said. “We can make even better decisions after we have taken part in the survey two to five more years.” With that time, Taylor said she hopes the university will offer an even better student experience. “The information isn’t supposed to be critical,” Taylor said. “It’s meant to be helpful. I think we all want to make this the best possible experience for students that we can, and this is just part of that process.” Kelly
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