Creating NSSE Champions
York University is a public research university with two campuses in Toronto, Canada. With 55,000 students, it is the third-largest university in Canada and one of the biggest in North America. York has participated in seven NSSE administrations, including in 2014. York’s Office of Institutional Planning and Analysis (OIPA) led a carefully planned campaign to engage the larger campus community in a successful NSSE administration. In partnership with the Division of Students, an initial steering committee of four was formed to guide the NSSE administration and promotional efforts.
After brainstorming initial ideas, the steering committee sought one representative from every faculty (equivalent to academic department or program in U.S. colleges and universities), from every front-facing administrative department, and from the student union to serve as a “NSSE Champion” in a larger working group and to lead promotional efforts in their own units. Committee members were recruited via a call to action from the provost and through presentations to various groups on campus. The presentations aimed to raise awareness of the value of NSSE and the importance of improving response rates. They also expressed a commitment to share the results more widely than before. The working group met every two weeks to help develop and test ideas, share techniques, and to maintain promotional momentum.
After rethinking York’s previous practice of not offering incentives to recruit participants, the working group created two kinds of incentives. At the end of the campaign, five $500 tuition waivers and 20 $25 bookstore coupons or student account top-ups were awarded by lottery. During the campaign, every student who completed the survey was awarded, on their student card, an electronic “virtual coupon” that was redeemable for a coffee at the campus Starbucks franchise or for $5.00 off any purchase at York Lanes—the campus retail center. The coupons were donated by the retailers. York’s information technology office developed software to make sure the process from completing the survey to transmission of the coupon was as seamless as possible.
York designed the campaign to be ubiquitous on campus, so that when the initial NSSE invitation email arrived, every student would know what it was for. To promote the survey, the working group used several strategies including the following: a. hired a student to make a teaser promotional video called “What Is NSSE?” that was shared on the York webpages, played on LCD screens around campus, and posted on social media; b. designed an extensive set of webpages with detailed information about what NSSE is and why it matters, what the incentives are, how faculty and staff can get involved, and how to promote NSSE ethically; c. used student-centric social media channels to generate awareness and discussion of NSSE and to encourage participation in the survey; d. displayed professionally designed and branded promotional messages on computer monitors in labs and on screens in classrooms; e. created a digital Communications Toolkit with information and material to help promote NSSE in faculties (e.g., departments) and classrooms.
The toolkit aimed to support conversations between faculty, staff, and student groups and included downloadable promotional postcards and posters, or an online form for requesting print copies of these. Posters were posted in high-traffic areas and postcards were used as information pieces and conversation starters.
One innovative idea for the York campaign was to create an internal competition in which the academic program with the highest participation rate would receive the “NSSE Champion Cup.” During the administration of the survey, the standings were updated every Thursday and displayed on York’s NSSE webpage and on every LCD screen across campus at 2:00 p.m. (see Figure 7).
Results were also disseminated to the community via social media. At the end of the NSSE administration, the cup was awarded to the Schulich School of Business, which won with a final overall response rate of 52%. York’s president awarded the trophy to the dean and his team of NSSE champions, who will keep the cup and bragging rights until the next administration of NSSE, in three years.
The working group continued to meet throughout the NSSE administration to share updates and best practices among the champions. One unit’s faculty found that the best promotional ambassadors were other students and advisors, so they encouraged students rather than administration to talk up NSSE. Another unit’s faculty found beginning-of-class announcements and distributing promotional postcards after class to be effective. Although central oversight of the campaign was critical, it was important for individual units to tailor their own campaigns to fit their culture.
Improving student participation in the NSSE 2014 administration was important to York because the results would be used to help set priorities in campus planning exercises. York replicated all of its institution-level NSSE reports as faculty-level reports with internal benchmarks. York also created item-level trend analyses using NSSE’s Frequencies and Statistical Comparisons report. Because the 2014 survey instrument differed from previous versions, items were grouped into “no change,” “minor change,” and “other,” according to NSSE’s guidelines. In total, about 70 reports were produced.
After looking at their results, one unit observed that their senior students were under-using their academic advisors relative to benchmarks, so they initiated offering the option of academic advising via Skype or smartphone to give busy students more flexibility. Another unit observed that their students had longer commute times than the rest of the institution. As a result, in-person workshops are being replaced with live and recorded webinars and a student was hired to work between classes to encourage other students to complete their financial aid applications. Yet another unit is using their results to encourage departments to include more experiential learning and high-impact practices in their curricula.
When asked what advice they would give to other campuses looking to boost their response rates, York recommended involving as much of the community as possible in the campaign. For large universities in particular, it is important not only to guide the campaign centrally, but also to allow the different academic units and other groups to promote the survey according to their unique cultures. Make sure that students know NSSE is coming well before the invitation letter is sent. Tell everyone how important NSSE is for identifying areas of academic strength and challenge; then associate NSSE results with improvement initiatives once the results are known. Be creative; campaigns that catch the imagination and rally the community can become engagement tools in their own right.
