•SARS Advisory Board
May 7 1997 -- Notes
Update, 1996-97 surveys
• All undergrads, on academic and non-academic services (“all classes”). Susan
 ACT student satisfaction survey plus local items
 Mailed to 1,400 in February; 42% returned to date. Phone follow (remind, ask a few
questions) with sample of non-respondents
 ACT will handle entry, in June. Results early fall
• Senior and alum: Not this year
• Entering freshmen, with sample from each ethnic/racial group. Susan, Cathy
 One question asked “Do you expect to complete a bachelor’s degree at CU-Boulder?”
Answers (weighted to population of all freshmen)
- No -- these students answered “definitely not” or “probably not” (n=14, 4%)
- Maybe -- “maybe/unsure” (n=77, 21%)
- Probably -- “probably yes” (n=105, 28%)
- Yes -- “definitely yes” (n=177, 47%)
 Compared to the other three groups, the Yes’s are more confident in their academic and
social ability, state that they are more comfortable at and have more knowledge of CUBoulder, are more likely to be in Business or Engineering, and are more likely to be a
Colorado resident from the Front Range. Surprisingly, their high school GPAs and their
CU predicted GPAs are no different than those of the other groups.
 ALSO SEE handout A.
• UCSU, phone, on cost centers. Lou
 250 graduate and undergraduate students were interviewed in April 1997 about their
familiarity with, use of, and judged quality and importance of the 12 UCSU cost center
services.
 80% had used at least 3 of the services. Non-users were asked reasons for non-use;
users were asked to rate the services on excellence.
 The Rec Center, UMC, and Wardenburg are used by the most students and are rated
highest in importance.
 The Rec Center and Women’s Resource Center are rated most highly by their users.
 Most non-users of a particular service were unfamiliar with that service or cited a lack of
need and/or interest in it as reason for not using it. (knowledge, use, satisfaction,
importance)
 Next step: Creating a web version
• Administrator Appraisal Program, for the BFA, with response rate experiment, Lou.
 All results, plus policies and background, at www.colorado.edu/SARS/AAP
 Prompted raters gave slightly higher ratings but put administrators in the same rank order
as unprompted raters
• Small-group programs. On fall ‘96 FCQs of Farrand, Sewall, KHP, WRAP, PLC, honors,
ROTC
 See PRELIMINARY results for fall ‘96 freshmen in these programs (HANDOUT A’); this
material has not gone to program directors yet!
• FCQ, per usual.
 New “Teaching Evaluation Committee” will start in fall, with 3 faculty members from
CAPPS (one will chair), 3 students (one an undergrad), Lou, Mary Ann Shea, and Todd
or Phil.
 TEC concerned with all evaluation methods; not really an FCQ oversight committee
 Hoping for pilot in the fall to collect short student comments written for other students
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SARS Advisory Board, May 7 1997
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considering taking the course. Hope to collect by paper and by Web, and publish via
Web. Modelled after Northwestern U practice.
Admitted student questionnaire. Cathy, Lou
 Mailed to 916 top NR freshmen admits Feb-March
 College Board instrument plus local items. CB will do analysis.
 Questionnaires still coming back, and we are phoning a sample of 100 non-confirmed
non-respondents.
 To date have 71% response rate from confirms, 44% from non-confirms; this compares
to rates in 1995 of about 50% and 7%, respectively (for students confirmed in August)
 Next step: Contact respondents who aren’t confirmed here and didn’t know where they
were going; find out where going
 Have entered answers to two local questions. See PRELIMINARY results (HANDOUT
B)
Grads and undergrads, on e-mail use, via e-mail. Cathy, Susan
 See writeup of PRELIMINARY results (HANDOUT C)
Alcohol related: Carol will discuss
ESL: With Jean Delaney, Lou
 In-class survey of students in ESL classes this term
 Mail survey of the 100 or so foreign students from non-English speaking countries who
had no TOEFL scores on record
 We also described entire “plausible ESL population” as determined by TOEFL scores,
whether from English-speaking country, student statements on ACT/SAT registration
about first language, and/or low ACT/SAT verbal scores coupled high math scores
Not coming next fall, now scheduled for ‘98-99: Re-do of undergraduate advising survey
Maybe by 7/31: Something on student-centered culture
Experiments and interventions underway
• Financial aid experiment, Lou
 Population: Top NR freshmen admits who applied for aid and did not list us first on the
FAFSA form
 Assigned to “offer” ($3000 for one year, $12000 over 4 years) vs. control conditions using
zip code, to avoid having students in a single HS in different conditions. But ended up
with 547 controls to 463 offers
 Success measure is enrollment at census. Only available current proxy is confirmations,
but show rates could differ so confirmations could be misleading
 Current confirm rates 10.9% for controls, 12.4% for offers; this is 14% higher than the
control rate. Encouraging
• Transcript senders. Eph, Lou
 Population: Freshmen, sophs, juniors who had requested transcripts sent to other
institutions
 Randomly assigned to control and calling groups, 104 students in each
 Forms on students to be called sent by Phil to deans, thence to depts/faculty. Open
option stayed with UAA. Forms had info on where transcripts sent, home state, major,
class level, etc., plus phone/address info.
 Forms returned: 28 total, of which 6 not reached. Other students might have been
reached without the form being returned. Of the 22 reached, 7 had never or were no
longer intending to transfer (transcripts sent for scholarships, study abroad, etc.) One
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made an appointment with the caller to discuss “problems.”
 Of the 15 contemplating transfer
- One got info from the caller (re KINE major) that may have convinced her to stay
- 5 mentioned wanting to be closer to home
- 7 mentioned cost. All but one was transferring to a home state public
- 2 were entering health programs that don’t require a bachelors for entry
- 2 each mentioned academic reputation, class size, and course availability
 FFaculty calling of top tier of freshmen and transfer admits. Not done experimentally
Non-registrants, Gary R
 Population: undergraduates who have not registered for fall within X days of time
assignment. N usually about 500-700
 Two earlier experiments failed to demonstrate any effect on retention of contacting these
students. Given this and the poor returns from transcript-sender calling, we decided not
to pursue this this term
Brang, retention task force and related activities initiated this year or next
 Advising task force and plans to revamp
 Early alert for students in trouble in 10 courses starting fall ‘96
 FTEP work with departments/faculty with courses with low success rates; on hold for the
moment, as Mary Ann thinks may be too evaluative for her
 Math mods NOT on the list
 Lots of recommendations out the departments, units, etc.
Overview, research/evaluation associated with RWJ grant on alcohol abuse, Carol.
HANDOUT E.
Two analyses from HB 1088 submission -- HANDOUT D.
• We did not discuss these in the meeting (ran out of time)
• Are these worth doing regularly? For what audience? Is the picture these paint positive or
negative?
 See “meeting student needs for high demand courses”
 See “freshmen who have at least one . . . “
Thoughts on where to go with “long view” discussion (not discussed)
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