Volume 6, No. 3 Published by Assessment Resource Office, Eastern New Mexico University Date:10-8-97

Institutional Priorities Survey

In the spring of 1997, the Assessment Resource Office administered the Institutional Priorities Survey (IPS) to faculty, professional staff, and administration. The IPS is similar in content and design to the Student Satisfaction Inventory (SSI) which was administered to Eastern students in 1995 and again in 1997. The results of the IPS will allow the Eastern community to compare the responses of Eastern's faculty, staff, and administration to a national cohort of public universities. In the next issue of the DATAWave, we will compare Eastern's IPS results to our student body's response to the 1997 administration of the SSI.  There were eleven inventory items in which faculty, professional staff, and administration were polled.

How well are we meeting our personnel's expectations here at Eastern?

What's Important to Eastern Personnel
Compared to Other Four-Year Public Institutions?

The Institutional Priorities Survey asked the question, "How important is it that the institution meet this expection?" The chart below shows how Eastern personnel rated the importance of each inventory item in comparison to other four-year public institutions.

Level of Agreement of Eastern Personnel
Compared to Other Four-Year Public Institutions.

The IPS asked a second question, "What is your level of agreement that the institutuion is meeting this expectation?" Responses from Eastern personnel are compared to other four-year public institutions below.

Faculty, staff, and administration's top five areas of importance were:

Instructional Effectiveness,
Recruitment and Financial Aid,
Concern for the Individual,
Student Centeredness, and
Campus Climate.

This response reflects Eastern's long term commitment to a quality liberal arts education and focus on Whole Student Life. It is also consistent of the University's six institutional priorities of Enrollment Management, Curriculum and Academic Programs, Whole Student Life, Whole Employee Life, Distance Education, and Technology. The data supports the University's ongoing planning and implementation of strategies. As made clear in the recent Pew Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, Eastern is an institution which is organized around student learning.

The areas in which faculty, staff, and administration felt that the University is doing the best job were:

Safety and Security,
Instructional Effectiveness,
Concern for the Individual,
Campus Support Services, and
Student Centeredness.

These, too, well reflect the University's intentions and priorities.

As in the Student Satisfaction Inventory, Eastern's faculty, staff, and administration tended to rate most of the areas of importance higher than the national mean. It is interesting to note that Academic Advising was rated slightly below the national mean. This area will be under review in the current academic year. There were several areas that Eastern employees rated their level of agreement higher than the national comparison cohort. Two of the areas which were much lower, Registration Effectiveness and Recruitment and Financial Aid, do not reflect that of the student sample. This speaks to a disconnect between faculty and staff's observations and those provided by students. This may be due to several factors including that perhaps faculty have memories of past problems that current students don't share.

In the next edition of the DATAWave on October 15th, scale scores for the Student Satisfaction Inventory and the Institutional Priorities Survey will be compared.