When students said they wanted a more manageable final-exam schedule, University of Iowa leaders listened.
The result: A new schedule with more breaks that caps each student’s finals at two a day. Recent feedback on tutoring, study spaces, and course-schedule changes also yielded innovations, all aimed at boosting student success.
This spring, the UI has a new tool to discover where students want to see improvements — Tell Us , an online survey currently open to all undergraduates.
Students:
Take the Tell Us survey here. Sign in with your Hawk ID (results are confidential).
“When students tell us things, it changes the university,” says Wayne Jacobson, assessment director for the Office of the Provost. “This project helps us have an institution-wide conversation.”
Tell Us is Iowa’s name for the Student Experience in the Research University ( SERU) survey developed at the University of California-Berkeley more than a decade ago. Today, 15 universities make up the SERU Consortium.
The survey takes about 20 minutes to complete, addressing areas like academic and community engagement, evaluations of majors, overall satisfaction, and perceived campus climate for diversity.
UI students can complete the survey through the end of May. It’s confidential, and participating students become eligible for weekly prize drawings.
Based on previous experience, Jacobson and colleagues are aiming for a one-third participation rate. On top of the standard SERU questions, they developed UI-specific items that address learning technology, employment, and whether students feel academically challenged.
Iowa has utilized other undergraduate surveys, including the National Survey of Student Engagement.SERU, however, is tailored specifically to large, complex research institutions.
Related: Last fall, the UI launched another survey project—MAP-Works—designed to identify first-year student in need. Read about its impact.
Also, Tom Rocklin, vice president for student life, and Beth Ingram, associate provost for undergraduate education, talk about the value of student voices in the May 1 Daily Iowan .
Survey results will offer individual departments information on students’ satisfaction with their majors. At the macro level, SERU Consortium partners aggregate their data to chart patterns across institutions.
While the survey aims to identify areas of need, it also serves to confirm things the university and its students are doing right.
“Whenever we get snapshots at this level, the responses are overwhelmingly positive,” Jacobson says. “We see that most students are proud of their education, respect the faculty, and connected to the university.”