Published on Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Administration looks to establish a campus climate with online survey

By DAN STONE

Students will have the opportunity to voice their perceptions about life at NIU through a survey to be issued Feb. 11.

The survey will ask students about academic and social life pertaining to the “campus climate” at NIU, Faculty Senate President Paul Stoddard said at Faculty Senate Jan 23.

Access to the survey will be given to students through an e-mail, NIU President John Peters wrote in a student announcements e-mail. The survey will be available for two weeks and should take between 20 and 30 minutes, he said.

The questions are strictly opinion-based and designed to gauge students’ level of satisfaction with different aspects of the university, Peters said. Answers will be kept confidential, he said.

“Statements range from the sense of belonging most students feel here and whether faculty care about students as individuals to the approachability of staff, the security of campus and the availability of financial aid,” Peters wrote.

The survey will be tailored specifically for NIU.

“It is a standard survey that this group puts together, and we were allowed to add all of ten questions to it,” Stoddard said.

Also, class time may be available for students to take the survey for some students.

“If you are teaching a larger class, you maybe asked to donate some class time to this endeavor,” Stoddard said. “That would be merely asking and not demanding.”

The survey is a component to the NIU Great Journeys Strategic Plan, Peters said. Noel-Levitz, the company that created the survey, will receive the information collected by the survey and report the results, Peters said.