Comparison of Student and Employee Ratings

Students’ top strategy is preparation for employment or graduate school. This strategy was chosen as first or second priority by over half the students responding, and was not important to only 15.2% of students (Table 1-1). Students rated this strategy as a high priority more often than staff, faculty, or administrators did.

Students were also strongly in favor of improving instruction as an important strategy to facilitate student success. Lecturer faculty were also strongly supportive of this strategy (Table 1-2). Staff, T/TT faculty, and administrators were less enthusiastic, although the majority of respondents from all groups considered this to be one of their five top priorities.

Both students and lecturer faculty may be directing their comments at the same group of courses (e.g., general education, lower division). Students and lecturer faculty may also have the same sets of concerns about those courses (e.g., overcrowding) but it is not possible to ascertain this directly from the tally of the statistical results.

Over 37% of students felt that facilitating student mastery of knowledge and skills should be an important priority for the university (Table 1-3). The importance placed on this strategy by students was echoed by lecturer faculty (34.9%) as well as by T/TT faculty at nearly the same levels (30.2%).

The support for this strategy is consistent with the support for the first two strategies mentioned above (preparation for employment or graduate school and improved instruction).

About 30% of lecturer faculty, students, and T/TT faculty support preparing students for lifelong learning as a high priority (Table 1-4). The level of support was lower among staff (20.6%) and administrators (16.0%).

Administrators most strongly support the establishment of student learning outcomes for the majors and for General Education (33%), but students were also strongly supportive (29.3%). Staff, lecturer faculty, and T/TT faculty are less supportive; half the respondents in these latter three groups did not feel that learning outcomes should be a priority (Table 1-5).

Administrators most strongly support facilitating graduation as a high priority (35.1%). Students and staff were about equally supportive (21% - 23%). Most T/TT and lecturer faculty were not supportive of this strategy as a high priority (Table 1-6).

Staff and administrators are the most supportive of student retention as a priority strategy (36%), perhaps because of their involvement in or knowledge of a number of current initiatives focusing on student retention and graduation (Table 1-7). T/TT faculty and students were less supportive, and lecturer faculty placed the least amount of emphasis on this strategy.

Students voiced a somewhat higher level of support for engaging students in campus life than did university employees (Table 1-8). Perhaps the perception of the campus as being a commuter school is no longer as accurate as it once was, at least for nearly half the student respondents. Staff and T/TT faculty are more likely to support this as a priority than are administrators or lecturer faculty, but the majority of these groups do not consider it to be a top strategy for fostering student success.

Students and administrators showed a bit more support for embracing campus diversity than other employees, but this strategy was not perceived to be a high priority issue by the majority of respondents from all five groups (Table 1-9).

T/TT faculty and students give the most support to involving students in research as a high priority, but support was only about half as strong among the other three groups (Table 1-10).

There was higher support among students and among T/TT faculty for supporting local and global community connections for students but overall there was relatively little support for making this a high priority strategy (Table 1-11).

Staff and students were the most supportive of improving the campus climate, with the three other groups expressing a lower level of support (Table 1-12). However, it was not a high priority strategy for the majority of all five groups.