By Sadie Murphy

When making decisions that directly involve students, it is not uncommon for individuals in charge to use data collected from agencies about those students. Typically, these studies give general statistics from a wider range of individuals instead of using information from a  specific location. The Phoenix conducted a nine-question-survey open from March 27 to April 2. There were 38 total responses. While that number is a small portion of the student body, the responses provided some starting points for discussions.

Of the 38 responses, we had at least one respondent whose major or minor was from each field offered at Glenville: Business, Criminal Justice, Education, Fine Arts, Health and Physical Education, Natural Resources, Language and Literature, Science and Mathematics, Social Science, and Other. Students who responded with “Other” were required to define their status. Of the three “Other” respondents, one was enrolled in the Regent’s Bachelors of Arts program, one was a double-major, and the last was a psychology and sociology minor.

Our study found that there was almost an equal number of responses that identified “early morning”, “late evening”, or “whatever fits my schedule” as the preferred time to take classes.  However, the majority of applicants preferred a mixture of early morning and late evening classes.

This survey identified multiple problem areas on campus but, before we get into that, we commend the college’s efforts to promote a happy environment for its professors and the professors' efforts to leave their students feeling confident in their fields of study. 71% of the participants indicated that they felt like their professors were happy in their jobs; 81% indicated that their major and minor related courses left them feeling confident.

Respondent answers concluded that there are five areas on campus that are college can improve: research opportunities, pressure to declare a major, shared governance, honest and effective communication, and understaffing.

Research Opportunities

Students were asked “Which departments do you think should allow students to have Independent Research Problems - where they can explore in depth a topic in their field - as a elective course [sic]?” and an outstanding 97% of students believe that every department should offer research opportunities that count as course credits.

Pressure to Declare a Major

While 68% of surveyed students indicated that they did not feel pressured to declare a major, the remaining individuals who have felt pressured in the past could be too high. We admit that pressuring students to declare major is not always a bad thing. Our survey is inconclusive on this issue because it does not ask respondents whether they believe this pressure is a positive or negative occurrence.

Shared Governance

Our survey revealed that the biggest problem with shared governance on campus is that individuals do not know enough about our governing system to feel comfortable responding to the question “Do you feel that Student Government, Faculty and Staff, and Administration successfully share governance - where each group has the same amount of power in decision making - on campus?” There were no respondents who indicated a belief that shared governance should not be used on campus. However, the majority of responses indicated that maintaining shared governance was “not so effective” on campus.

Honest and Effective Communication

Almost every three out of four respondents indicated that they do not believe that communication on campus is honest and effective when dealing with positive or negative issues. Granted, 10% of applicants felt that they did not know enough about the topic to provide a response.

Understaffing

Over 75% of respondents indicated that they felt their department did not have enough faculty members.

A link will be posted here for more information about department specific statistics.