Informing Strategic Action with Student Engagement Results
In its most recent reaccreditation review with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, Gettysburg College, a four-year residential arts and sciences college in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was commended by the visiting team for its exemplary and innovative practices of effective, systematic use of indirect assessments, including NSSE, and for improving student learning. The visiting team commented, “Assessment data were among the motivators for considering improvements and change; multiple constituencies engaged in the discussions and established new goals and benchmarks; resources were allocated, despite unexpected constraints after the 2008 financial crisis; and new data demonstrate some significant achievements in each area.”
Gettysburg’s strong, systematic use of NSSE results and, in particular, its use of data to inform change, is fostered by the regular review and consideration of NSSE and other survey results by a wide range of groups and committees including the President’s Council, the Committee on Institutional Effectiveness, the Committee on Learning Assessment, task forces (such as the Academic Advising and Mentoring Task Force and the Task Force on the Intellectual Life of First-Year Students), at faculty meetings, and at divisional meetings and retreats.
The comprehensiveness of sharing NSSE results helped inform the development and refinement of the college’s strategic action goal on engagement, which states, “Gettysburg College will promote intellectual development, engagement, and leadership through active and innovative learning experiences.” Within this goal the college detailed several subgoals and implementation strategies, including academic rigor/ level of academic challenge and high-impact learning opportunities. In these approaches, many initiatives have been expanded or created to address areas of concern identified in NSSE and other assessments.
Two examples of NSSE data use related to the engagement strategic action goal highlight Gettysburg’s practice. Results for Student-Faculty Interaction suggested the potential to enhance student participation in faculty-mentored research. In response, the college has prioritized increasing support for student summer research and senior projects, expanding opportunities for student travel to academic and professional conferences and providing a place to showcase student research and creative work. In recent years, the college has expanded student participation in research through increased financial support and new initiatives.
For example, the college launched Celebration—The Annual Colloquium on Undergraduate Research, Creative Activity, and Community Engagement to provide ongoing opportunities for students to present the results of their undergraduate research and creative projects to their faculty, peers, and others. Celebration brings together a wide range of engaged and energized students as they showcase their work from capstone research, independent study, coursework-related research, study abroad, service learning, and arts. The investment in faculty-mentored research has paid off, with more faculty and students reporting their participation in this high-impact practice.
A second effort related to addressing Gettysburg’s engagement goal relied on NSSE results for student participation in internships, which were lower than expected. The college used these results as a call to action and has greatly expanded career-preparation programs for students through an initiative called “The Career Connector Challenge” and through closer collaboration between the development and alumni office and center for career development. The Career Connector Challenge was launched in 2010, by Gettysburg’s Center for Career Development, to create new career-related opportunities for students, including networking dinners, summer internships, shadowing opportunities, and informational interviews, through an intensive campaign among alumni, parents, and friends. Since this initiative was launched, student-reported participation in career internships, externships, and job-shadowing experiences have increased, and Gettysburg’s NSSE 2014 results affirmed that student internship participation as reported by seniors now exceeded their Carnegie Classification peers (earlier results showed that Gettysburg was similar to its peers on this measure).
Informed by NSSE results and other assessments, the college has greatly increased its support for faculty-mentored research, internship, and other high-impact learning experiences through resource allocation and new initiatives. Gettysburg College will continue to monitor its progress through various benchmarking assessments, including their next NSSE administration.
