The Office of Residential Life and Housing recently sent residential students the Educational Benchmarking Inventory (EBI) survey to measure student satisfaction with campus services.
Assistant Dean of Student Services and Director of Residential Life and Housing Aarika Camp said the EBI asked students to measure their satisfaction with 15 factors including facilities, safety, dining services, community environment, residence hall staff, roommates and sustainability.
Residential Life sets internal and financial goals based on the feedback. For example, one change the office made based on last year’s EBI survey was adding career advising services from the Office of Career Development to the residence halls in addition to the tutoring services from the Tutoring and Testing Center.
A change that will be considered based on this year’s feedback is the roommate change process.
“Right now, we make students go through mediation,” Camp said. “I don’t think we’re going to change the mediation itself but maybe how we educate people on the mediation so it doesn’t seem as daunting when it happens.”
Camp said she sends department specific feedback to those respective departments. For example, feedback about dining is sent to the Office of Business Services and Chartwells. Feedback is also being sent to the Office of Facilities Management regarding students’ desire to be notified when work is done in their rooms.
The survey was available Feb. 1 to Feb. 20. Out of around 1,280 residential students, 581 completed the survey — a 46 percent response rate and an increase from last year’s 42 percent rate.
“Hopefully, students will say, ‘We know they’ve listened. We know they’ve changed some things because of it, so why not do it?’” Camp said. “We actually read the feedback, share it, take it into consideration and make some changes.”
Camp said that the survey was a way to hear positive as well as negative comments.
“That’s the only way we’re going to get better and retain our students — if they know their voice is heard and that we’re doing something with it,” Camp said. “
The office tries its best to listen to the students and make changes that are convenient for most students. For example, the office recently revamped the room selection process.
“The things that we can change, we’re always open and willing to change,” Camp said. “And if we have to work with other offices to get that done, we’ll do it.
Residential Life also randomly chose a student who completed the survey to win a $2,500 housing scholarship. Camp said this was to say thank you for completing the survey.
“It’s to say, ‘Your opinion matters. Your opinion counts,’” Camp said. “We want to encourage students to do it.”
This year’s winner Zuleika El Hage, junior marketing major, was so excited to win that she immediately called her family to tell them the news. El Hage said she believes the survey is important to the university and that it felt good to give feedback.
“It feels good to let NSU know if they’re doing a good job or if they’re not and to let the residential assistants know that they’re contributing and that the students see that they’re trying to do events and get people together,” El Hage said.
El Hage’s experience at NSU has been positive, but she still found a benefit to completing the survey.
“Giving feedback is nice,” El Hage said. “If someone gives me feedback, I appreciate it, so it’s nice giving someone feedback when they ask for it.”
