KU Scores High in Student Engagement
By Jonathan Kealing, Journal-World, Lawrence, Kan.
Nov. 7–Move over U.S. News and World Report, Kansas University and national education leaders have a new set of rankings they’d much rather parents and students consider.
About 250 universities and colleges Monday released data from the National Study of Student Engagement, which, instead of examining university qualities such as selectivity and endowment size, emphasizes student experiences and the connection they form with a university.
“I hope parents are using this data that way,” KU senior vice provost Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett said. “This deep study is a much more in-depth look at universities (than U.S. News rankings).”
This is the eighth year of the NSSE, but it’s the first time schools have been encouraged to report the data publicly. About 600 schools complete NSSE, but not all made their data public.
McCluskey-Fawcett said KU uses the NSSE data as a tool when explaining to students why they should come to KU, where students scored above the national benchmarks in virtually all categories.
The benchmarks assess freshmen and seniors on a university’s level of academic challenge, the existence of active and collaborative learning, the level at which student and faculty interact, the availability of enriching educational experiences and the presence of a supportive campus environment.
In each area except enriching experiences for first-year students, KU scored about two points higher than the national average. KU was a point below the national benchmark in first-year enriching experiences, which include study abroad, undergraduate research and even writing for a student newspaper.
“This shows how much focus there is on undergraduate education here,” McCluskey-Fawcett said. “We balance undergraduate education with research. Sometimes in major research universities, the undergraduates get short shrift.”
In addition to breaking out information for some individual schools, this year’s NSSE also found that the oft-maligned “helicopter parents” may not be the major detriment they’ve long been considered.
Helicopter parents are those who take care of routine matters for their university-age children, even going so far sometimes as to talk to a student’s professors and advisers.
NSSE found that students who talk frequently with their parents and ask them for advice are more likely to participate in educationally useful activities and to generally be satisfied with their college experience.
McCluskey-Fawcett, a self-described helicopter parent in her own right, said KU doesn’t consider helicopter parents harmful. KU even has a parents club it created in the past few years.
“We’ve thought of them as invested in their children,” she said. “We think of them as an integral part of the student’s educational process.”
Among the other findings in this year’s report:
–Ten percent of students will never meet with an academic adviser, even though those who do twice a year gain more from college.
–An internship or field placement is the most rewarding culminating experience for students.
–Students are more satisfied when faculty provide feedback and guidance on projects and papers.
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