 "Photo: PREFACE PHOTO/Jenn Zellers")
The recent Student Satisfaction Index (SSI) survey has confirmed what has much been said on campus: parking here sucks.
However, the results of the SSI were encouraging according to Dave Triets of Noel-Levitz consulting firm.
Overall, students here at IU South Bend are satisfied and care about professor knowledge and accessibility, the variety of classes offered, and how tolerant and respectful of diversity they find the student body and the faculty and staff.
IUSB asked Noel-Levitz in September to implement a campus wide survey process of students and staff, in an attempt to aid retention and boost enrollment. The survey gave a series of statements that students then rate on satisfaction and importance of the issues, on a scale of 1-7. Averaging the scores gave Trites a grid with two boxes on which to concentrate: high satisfaction and high importance became school successes, and low satisfaction and high importance became goals to be met in the near future.
Trites then compared these averages with the national average, and gave recommendations for changes to be implemented by faculty and administration. One key point of student dissatisfaction was proper advising.
“I can’t come in here and change your entire advising system in one week,” said Trites. “However, these results show something has to be done.”
Trites also debunked the myths of student success: that to boost success rates you should lower enrollment standards, that students come to college knowing what they need to do to succeed, and that a university’s goal should be 0% attrition.
He also stressed that in order to see results, behavior must change, and that there needs to be a coordinated effort toward retention services in the form of an office specifically dedicated to “IUSB Retain.”
“We need to make finding the resources for success less of a scavenger hunt,” said Trites.
It is to this office that struggling students would be directed to see how the faculty and administration could help them do better in class and in life. Trites and the administration see the retention problem as needing effort toward giving students the tools necessary to succeed.
Trites then suggested efforts that could be made to fully integrate students into college life, such as insisting on the U100 freshman seminar, improving on-campus employment opportunities, teaching classes in financial literacy and integrating the advising plans of all the different colleges on campus.
“We need to stop being ashamed of teaching students what they need to know for life,” said Trites.
Although IUSB measured up to the national averages on retention, recruitment and graduation rates, the stated goal of raising solid enrollment numbers by 10% can be met by increasing retention and recruitment by 5% each, Trites told the meeting.
He was encouraged by the results, stating that although there was room for improvement, especially in parking and advising, students are overall satisfied with IUSB and happy with their professors and the strength of the material presented in class and the campus as a whole.
