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Students Give University High Marks

Wed., Jan 25

student and professorA national research team recently visited Southern to learn just how and why the university has consistently fared better than most of its peers with regard to educational environment and engagement of students.The university is one of only eight colleges and universities selected for a site visit as part of a study for the NSSE Institute for Effective Educational Practice. The institute produces an annual survey of freshmen and senior college students each year called the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), an assessment tool that enables schools to learn about how students perceive their educational experience.

Not only has Southern scored well on the surveys compared with other schools, but it has shown significant improvement during the last seven years in most of the specific categories measured by the survey.

"It is quite an honor to be selected for this study," says interim Provost Marianne Kennedy. "The site team was very complimentary and genuinely seemed impressed with what we are doing. In particular, they noted how multi-faceted and complex our efforts have been.

"The results of the survey each year affirm our belief that the First-Year Experience (FYE) program has been a catalyst for the improvements," Kennedy says. "The biggest gains that we have seen with first-year students came right after the FYE was fully implemented."

Kennedy also says that other programs, such as the New Student Orientation, peer mentoring, faculty development efforts and co-curricular activities, have helped as well. NSSE asks freshmen and seniors a variety of questions to determine their perceptions in five categories: level of academic challenge, active and collaborative learning, student-faculty interaction, enriching educational experiences and supportive campus environment. Studies have shown that those areas are predictors of future student success.

This fall, Southern's freshmen scored higher than most of its peers in four of the five categories, most notably in the areas of student-faculty interaction and providing enriching educational experiences.

 

Among this year's findings:

  •  84 percent of freshmen and 79 percent of seniors reported their overall educational experience at Southern to be "good" or "excellent."
  •  76 percent of freshmen and 73 percent of seniors said they would "probably" or "definitely" come to Southern for their college education if they had an opportunity to start again.
  •  79 percent of freshmen and 81 percent of seniors talk at least occasionally about their career plans with faculty.
  •  50 percent of students had participated in some form of community service or volunteer work by the time they were seniors.