Promoting Student Engagement Through Shared Leadership and Collaboration
The University of Tulsa (TU) is a private doctoral degree granting university with an average student enrollment of slightly over 4,100. Of this total, approximately 3,000 are undergraduates. The campus is close to downtown Tulsa, OK, an urban center with a population of 550,000. The University’s mission reflects the core values of excellence in scholarship, dedication to free inquiry, integrity of character, and commitment to humanity.
The decision to participate in NSSE was made by the Vice-Provost for Academic Affairs in 2001. Institutional administrators were motivated to learn more about the experiences and expectations of their students and to discover if faculty and staff impressions of students were accurate. TU participated in NSSE in 2001, 2004, and 2007; and in Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE) in 2004 and 2007. In addition, the College of Law administered the Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) in 2004 and 2007.
Winona Tanaka, a Clinical Associate Professor from the TU College of Law, is the current Vice Provost and Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs whose responsibilities include heading up administration of NSSE and working with survey results. Over the past five years, she has actively promoted the use of NSSE results for assessment and planning across campus. In addition, after attending a NSSE users workshop, her office has provided funds for two faculty members, the dean of students, and several senior administrators from enrollment services and university assessment to attend additional NSSE workshops. Dr. Alex Wiseman, an Assistant Professor in the School of Education, attended a NSSE workshop and later delivered presentations to the Student Services staff at TU using many of the materials—such as handouts, slides, and exercises—he had gathered in the NSSE sessions.
The culture at TU is to “work together” across division lines. Tanaka has presented NSSE results in the Dean’s Council, at the annual campus-wide meeting of faculty and staff, to Student Services staff, and to internal HLC accreditation committees. Presentations focused on using NSSE results as indirect measures to support selected standards in TU’s self-study, a component of the HLC reaccreditation process. NSSE data was used to affirm a number of assertions in the self-study. Professor Tanaka uses NSSE benchmark data for broad comparisons. When carrying out analysis of specific areas, she frequently uses disaggregated raw data. For example, TU prides itself on the quality of relationships between students and faculty. Using student responses from selected NSSE items, the vice provost was able to present to the Dean’s Council a revealing look at student-faculty interaction on campus.
Although NSSE results were mainly used for reaccreditation purposes, the Admissions and Student Services offices were very interested in student responses that Tanaka had pulled out for the self-study on survey items 7d and 7g, which ask students if they plan to or have: a) worked with a faculty member on a research project, or b) pursued an independent study or a self-designed major. Admissions and Student Affairs plan to use these data along with scores on diversity items in recruiting materials. These offices have created an advisory board of high school counselors from across the country. TU funds the counselors to come to campus for an annual meeting to gather their expertise on meeting the needs of first-year students. Responsibilities for assessment have moved from the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs to the Director of University Assessment over the past year. University Assessment hopes to collaborate with a faculty member in each college who will serve as a champion for helping their colleagues understand the importance and usefulness of NSSE data for analysis at the college level.
