On Oct. 14, NSU’s Office of Institutional and Community Engagement will administer its sixth annual student survey for students to give feedback and express concerns to university administrators.
Alejandrina Matias, coordinator in the Office of Institutional and Community Engagement said, “The goal of the survey is to get an assessment of student’s satisfaction here — satisfaction with their classes and how they feel about their involvement with NSU, the value of their education, if they’re comfortable with faculty and administrative staff. It’s an overall survey.”
Last year’s survey resulted in $9 million in technology upgrades, along with shuttle service to downtown Fort Lauderdale and the Museum of Art from main campus. And when survey participants requested increased campus safety features, including sidewalks, signage and additional cameras across campus, Matias said Hanbury listened.
“The president did his best to accommodate that and instill that as public safety goals,” said Matias. “Dr. Hanbury really wants to listen to what the students are saying, so that he can do a better job of making the students happy.”
The dean of each school — undergraduate and graduate, across all campuses — will email students asking for their participation in the survey, which will be open for three weeks. This will be followed by an email containing the survey from Credo Higher Education, a third-party company that ensures confidentiality of responses.
Participants will also be automatically entered into a drawing to win one of two iPad minis. The winners’ names will be randomly drawn on Nov. 13 and they’ll be notified by email.
Barbara Packer-Muti, executive director of the Office of Institutional and Community Engagement, said the survey should take most students less than five minutes to complete. It is comprised of Likert scale questions, which ask students to rank their likelihood of doing something.
For example, Matias said students will be asked “How likely are you to recommend NSU to a perspective student?” and “How likely are you to become involved as an alum once you graduate?”
The survey will also allow students to write in additional suggestions, complaints or positive feedback.
Last year, 22 percent of students participated and Packer-Muti hopes to more than double student participation to at least 50 percent this year. Some of the older students claim they didn’t previously participate because they didn’t know much about the survey.
Packer-Muti said, “We want to get more responses because then we know we are accurately representing the views of our students. As a result of the student surveys and the town hall meetings, there have been many changes because students asked for them. We really care about what they have to say. The only way we can get feedback from students is to encourage a lot of participation.”
Ruby Wagimin, senior biology major, agrees that many students should participate and suggested more advertisements around campus explaining the survey’s importance.
Wagimin, along with Emily Harrington, who is a freshman marine biology major, and Kaisha Butz, who is a sophomore biology major, hope that feedback from the survey will result in healthier food options on campus.
But the scope of the survey extends beyond just the residential main campus experience. Past responses have resulted in free shipping of textbooks to regional campuses, Town Hall meetings via webinar for online students and extended hours on all regional campuses during exam blocks.
Matias said, “The administrators look at what the students say and what they want and try to accommodate that.”
Once the results from the survey are analyzed, an executive summary will be written up and made available for anyone to view on NSU’s website — though the date of the summary’s release is yet to be determined.
Matias encouraged all students to take the survey, saying, “It is not just for fun. Dr. Hanbury and administrators are going to be looking at it. And it’s anonymous, so students should say whatever they feel.”
Aliyah Hill, sophomore biology major, took the survey last year and plans to take it again. She said the changes on campus reflect that administrators listened to students.
“Hopefully, it will help assess what to change and what’s good,” she said.
