By now I am sure that most of you have participated in North Park’s new assessment form that evaluates your classes and professors.  For students other than freshman, you have made the astute observation that, yes, indeed this survey has changed. It is more comprehensive in its attempt to evaluate not only your professor, but your own aptitude in the classroom, as well as how the course compares to other courses that you have taken while at North Park.

Something that you probably are not aware of yet is North Park’s new institutional survey of student engagement.  Come again? According to the NSSE website, “The National Survey of Student Engagement is a survey specially designed for students like you to provide information about your undergraduate experience, including your views about the quality of your education and how you spend your time.”

The general idea is that random members of North Park’s incoming freshman class and the outgoing senior class will take an evaluation of their experience while being students.  The categories include everything from how often you study, watch T.V., were tutored, and participated in group projects, to how your relationships have been with various professors, pastors, and administrators.

The NSSE website states, “Institutions use their data to identify aspects of the undergraduate experience inside and outside the classroom that can be improved through changes in policies and practices more consistent with good practices in undergraduate education.”

The results of these new surveys provide an estimate of how we as undergraduates spend our time and what we gain from attending North Park. In charge of initiating this program is Mr. Robert Stanley who is the University’s new Director of Institutional Effectiveness and Research.

Mr. Stanley stated, “These surveys are based on the objectives that the professor has set for the course, so if the professor has selected three main objectives, then the students rate their learning based upon those selected objectives.”

Thus far, the only negative feedback that I have heard about these course evaluations from students is its length.  How I have replied is that unlike in the previous years, this evaluation is actually pertinent to students taking a course. Previously, there were only 13 questions, of which half were unreliable indicators to the successes and failures of the course or professor. If students answer truthfully to the questions being asked, then the student voice can better regulate class policies, procedure, and effectiveness of their professor.

While these new surveys attempt to be relevant to students’ life in and out of the classroom, I am naively optimistic that actual results will move forward an institution whose standard is mediocre at best.

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