Friday, November 30, 2001

Self-study survey results to be released before the fall semester ends
By Piper Huddleston
Staff Reporter

Information from the surveys sent out by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools re-accreditation self-study committee is currently being organized and will be ready before the end of the semester, Alan Shepard, director of the self-study, said Thursday.

The surveys, which could be done electronically or on paper, were sent out the last week in October to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff and alumni, Shepard said. The electronic surveys closed a week later, and the paper surveys sent to alumni are still coming in, he said.

The committee has the results of the survey, but has not compiled them into a report, Shepard said.

The surveys are just one kind of data used to examine the university and make sure it is in compliance with SACS, Shepard said. He said other information comes from various interviews, focus groups, and analysis of documents and mission statements that will be worked on until 2003. There are 150 faculty, staff and students on the self study committee who are divided into different subcommittees that evaluate the information from the surveys, he said.

Shepard said a program, called the statistical package for social sciences, will code the information for easy assessment of the electronic surveys. Some of the results should be ready next week, but the paper surveys will take longer to asses, he said.

Shepard said 2,812 undergraduate and 376 graduate students responded, about 41 to 42 percent of students. He said 249 full-time faculty members and 48 part-time faculty members completed the survey. Twenty-four faculty members did not identify their status. He said 633 staff members also responded to the survey.

“The response rates may not look very good, but they are exceptionally high,” Shepard said. “For this type of survey, you are lucky to get at least a 20 percent response.”

Shepard said the large response was due to the incentives offered. Students were offered credit to their TCU account while faculty and staff had a chance to win one of five free reserved parking spaces for next year, he said.

“We really wanted that (opinion) data,” Shepard said. “We needed a way to get their attention (and offering prizes was that way). To get (that amount of people) to do anything is pretty amazing.”

Carol Herring, an office assistant in Wiggins Hall, said she took the survey not for a chance to win a prize, but to help the self-study.

“I think any kind of feedback is good,” she said. “I think the survey covered all the basic (information).”

Meagan Neldo, a freshman advertising-public relations major who was one of the $100 winners, also said that the reward wasn’t a large reason why she took the survey.

“The reward was an incentive, but it really wasn’t about that,” she said. “Things (on campus) won’t get changed unless students voice their opinions.”

Shepard said he is not expecting alumni responses to be as high as faculty and student response. Surveys were sent to about 2,839 alumni who graduated in 1996 and 2000, he said. Past SACS surveys received a 25 percent return rate, he said, but the committee hopes to get back 20 percent of that rate. They have received several hundred surveys from alumni so far, he said. The alumni were asked more questions about their TCU experience and how it prepared them for ac career than the other groups who were asked about their current satisfaction with things on campus, he said.

“If we get 10 percent back, then that’s good,” he said. “With less than 10 percent, it’s hard to make (clear conclusions). It’s not a solid sample.”

The surveys will be used to measure opinions on such things as campus safety, campus involvement opportunities and the type of education received, he said.

“It’s one piece of a larger picture,” Shepard said. “It’s a survey of opinion. It tells you what’s working really well and what needs further attention.”

Shepard said the information will show what someone thinks of a certain area, and how important that area is to them.

“If you said security on campus after dark is not satisfactory, but it is important, then that is something to look into,” Shepard said.

Staff Reporter Jacque Petersell contributed to this report

Piper Huddleston
k.p.huddleston@student.tcu.edu