'SNAPS' positive

By Jennifer Uma
Daily Forty-Niner

The administrators at Cal State Long Beach are snapping their fingers to the tune of a ringing endorsement by students regarding the quality of different services on campus.

SNAPS (Student Needs and Priorities Survey), assesses student satisfaction through a variety of questions.

The survey is done by the Chancellor's Office and is administered to 22 CSU campuses every five years.

The most recent survey was conducted in spring 1999. The CSULB survey, completed by a diversified group of 1,215 students, put CSULB high up on the list compared to other CSU campuses in terms of student satisfaction.

"We did extremely well in comparison to other campuses," said CSULB President Robert Maxson. "It is a giant vote of confidence that we moved right to the top."

Also, the survey stated that there has been a more positive response from students than in 1994.

Although the campus received high marks, Maxson admits things can be better.

"There are some topics that we did not do so well in 1994. What we did was, we saw the results, formed committees, gave money to the areas that needed service. Those areas just improved."

The survey provides 40 general questions based on a five-point scale.

The questions range from quality of instruction and learning environment to factors that influence college choice. The survey also allows the university to add 20 questions of its own.

"About 80 percent of students rated the quality of instruction as good or excellent," Maxson said. "That is phenomenal."

Faculty members who heard these numbers during presentations made by Vincent Novack, a research technician in the department of Institutional Research on campus, were generally not impressed with these numbers, Novack said.

"It shows how much they care," Novack said. "Until it's 100 percent they're not going to be satisfied."

Maxson would also like to see 100 percent satisfaction among the students in various areas.

Novack presented the results to about 14 different organizations on campus, including the Academic Senate, Associated Students Inc., and the Division of Student Services.

They were all quite pleased that they were given higher marks than in the previous survey, and the groups look at this information as a jumping off point to improve their services, he said.

Maxson believes that the results of the surveys are accurate portrayals of how students feel.

"I think it is sort of a cop out to say that students don't understand," Maxson said. "I trust these surveys and I trust the students' judgment."

In addition, there might be a "junior SNAPS" in the future, which would be conducted every other year on this campus only, Novsck said. This would make it easier to track students' perceptions over time.