Degree-credit students will have the opportunity to provide insight into areas of student satisfaction, strategic planning and student services at the college.
Between Monday, Feb. 24 to Monday, March 9, every student will receive an email in his or her student account, which will include a link to The Noel-Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory (SSI).
The SSI is an online survey conducted by Noel-Levitz, a higher education consulting firm that focuses on helping colleges across the nation to optimize student success.
At Madison College, this biennial survey demonstrates an opportunity for students to rate the college and its components so that facilitators and administration may better serve student need.
Ali Zarrinnam, manager of Institutional Research Analysis (IRE) at the college said while other surveys are conducted throughout the year, this is the only survey that really measures the satisfaction of the entire student body.
In order to attain functional information, SSI asks students to focus on two specific characteristics of the college’s various initiatives.
“It measures how satisfied they are and how important they feel that a particular item is,” said Zong Her, IRE senior project leader. “It helps us to prioritize the initiatives that we have around the college. We can’t do everything so we try to focus on the things that are both important to the students and have the least satisfaction.”
Not only are these elements evaluated within the college, SSI also works as a tool for Madison College to be benchmarked against other two-year institutions.
“We can compare our results with other colleges to see how we stack up across the nation,” Zarrinnam said.
When results from Noel-Levitz return in April, analysis teams from each area at Madison College will examine the feedback and devise initiatives to address issues related to their specific department.
Since its inception at Madison College in 2005, SSI has led to improvements in textbook rentals, online student services and flexible scheduling. These surveys initiated the creation of the new Bettsey L. Barhorst Welcome Center and the Enrollment Center located in the Truax Gateway, offering students a central location to ask questions or seek advising. In addition, financial aid walk-in services, the new library at the Portage campus, and improvements to the Student Achievement Center have all been direct results of SSI.
In the most recent survey conducted in 2012, participating students said they would like to see improvements in advisement. With this information, the college was able to add 17 new advisers and revamp its entire advising model.
“It was a college-wide effort to have advisors available at the beginning, but also to have them available to help plan all the way through [the semester],” Her said.
This year, students may take this anonymous survey on their own or visit one of the special survey booths during SSI kick-off week. These booths will be set up at designated areas on each Madison College campus from 8 a.m. on Monday, Feb 24 to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 26.
Upon completion of the survey at one of these laptop-equipped booths, students will receive a small prize, or as Zarrinnam calls it “swag.” These prizes range from water bottles to flash drives.
In addition, all students who participate in this survey — on their own or at a booth — become automatically entered into a giveaway drawing.
First prize in this drawing is a $500 Madison College scholarship and second prize is an Amazon Kindle Fire. Consolation prizes include a gift card for salon services at the college, a “RockStar” parking spot at Truax, meals at the Truax Gourmet Dining Room and fast food gift cards.