William Jewell College is an intimate college, in Liberty, MO, and a longtime participant in NSSE and BCSSE. Because of this long-standing commitment to the surveys, components of these instruments have been embedded in discussions about the curriculum, improving instructional practice, and in advising discussions. For example, stagnant senior scores on NSSE’s Academic Challenge Engagement Indicator led to an initiative to disaggregate these data by major and to have conversations with academic departments to raise their awareness of the survey results. These conversations stimulated course-level adjustments within departments that resulted, in subsequent surveys, in seniors in most programs reporting higher scores on the Academic Challenge indicator.
The institution also uses BCSSE scores to facilitate relationship-building between the academic advisor and first-year advisee by asking them to discuss the differences in the first-year student’s expectation of the college experience and their high school experience and behaviors, corresponding with items on the BCSSE instrument. At William Jewell College, as at many similar institutions, faculty serve as advisors for students. BCSSE information provides guidance for faculty on how to best support students. Advisors are asked to pay particular attention to students who plan to spend less than 15 hours a week studying, more than 10 hours a week working, or more than 10 hours a week participating in co-curricular activities. They are also asked to pay attention to low self-ratings within the sections of Expected Transition Difficulty or Academic Perseverance.
William Jewell College also exemplifies how to use NSSE Topical Module data to guide curriculum development and resource allocation. Stakeholders at the institution leveraged data from the Experiences with Diverse Perspectives module to enhance a ten-year plan to increase campus structural diversity and interactions around diverse topics and to be more inclusive. Results from years of collecting data from this module indicated that students at the institution were less likely than the institution desired to engage in activities or to participate in conversations regarding societal differences. Although comparison showed that the institution’s data were similar to the data of peer institutions, the college aimed for even better performance. As a result, the faculty approved adding a required common course on identity and society for all new students (starting Fall 2017) and requiring those students by the time of graduation to complete two approved diversity and inclusion courses (at least six credits), one on diversity in the US and the other on global diversity.
The college also administered the Learning with Technology module and found changing levels of technology use in high school reported by first-year students over the last few years. This information informs on-going changes in how the institution integrates digital resources, leverages a digital commons, and maximizes its one-on-one mobile initiative that provides all students an iPad. Educationally effective technology use has become so ubiquitous at the institution that Apple has designated William Jewell College a Distinguished School for its “innovation, leadership, and educational excellence.”
