Faculty Senate did not vote on resolutions or present business Monday afternoon but presented new insight on assessment of student and faculty experience, student enrollment and the search for a new vice president of research.

Fashaad Crawford, assistant provost for Accreditation, Assessment and Learning, opened discussion with methods to properly analyze student satisfaction in classes. To retrieve feedback from current students, eight different assessments will be implemented by spring 2015.

University assessments

The discussion surveyed methods from university officials to gauge how students felt — whether through face-to-face questionnaires in class, online surveys or a hybrid of the two.

“This is the first step from my office to enhance communication and understand how it relates to the surveys we administer,” Crawford said. “Student retention is…one of the most heavily studied in higher education literature.”

Crawford said theories indicate that the more comfortable a student is in school, the more likely the university will be to retain that student.

Crawford said his office pushed for accreditation last year but is looking to enhance the student surveying process.

Enrollment numbers, GPA of admissions up

The senate also received an enrollment update from Greg Jarvie, vice president for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs. Jarvie said enrollment continues to rise as his office seeks a fine balance between the number of admitted students and total GPA of the admissions classes.

“We still believe we can bring up the academic quality with those same numbers,” Jarvie said. “If you want a bigger class, it’s tougher to get a stronger academic class.”

Contact Jimmy Miller at [email protected].