Chancellor Allison will take questions about this new initiative in the March 24th Senate meeting. He writes:
Thank you for inviting me to speak at the Academic Senate meeting this Friday. At that meeting, I’ll give a brief budget update and other quick news. I also will announce that IU South Bend will begin to advertise two ways for students and others to provide feedback on how well our campus is providing services. The two tentatively named feedback addresses are advisesb@iusb.eduand improve@iusb.edu.
Many college campuses have an online suggestion forum for quality improvement. In fact, my office already informally serves this function as students, prospective students, parents, staff, and others regularly contact the Chancellor’s Office with praise, complaints, or with other feedback. improve@iusb.edu will be advertised as a way to encourage individuals on and off campus to provide feedback on ways that the campus can improve its services. Unsolicited, informal feedback in the recent past has included such suggestions or questions such as: “Is there a way to reduce the parking lighting during the night to save money?” “Can you please weed the garden outside (Wiekamp, Northside, the Administration Bldg—all have been suggested)?” “I have had a problem with my transfer transcript and haven’t been able to resolve it. What should I do next?” As part of quality improvement for the campus, we would like to encourage campus constituents to continue to provide feedback and suggestions. Review of suggestions for improve@iusb.edu will begin with Chancellor’s Office staff, who will forward to appropriate units for response and track to ensure that we have responded appropriately if those providing a suggestion wish to have a response.
During my several years at IU South Bend, I have consistently heard from students that they would like to improve advising at the campus. At the same time, I’ve often heard high praise for individual advisors and have tried to pass on both praise and need for improvement. In 2014/15 advising was identified by the SGA President as the students’ top concern. When I recently met with a group of our student professionals, they stated that the quality of advising remains a top priority for them and that IU South Bend must improve our efforts in advising. Students suggested a specific online mechanism for students to provide feedback on their advising experience. They stated that course evaluations provide for anonymous feedback and that they’d like a similar system for feedback on their advising experience. advisesb@iusb.edu would not be anonymous, but would allow a student a degree of confidentiality in stating concerns. It would be advertised widely as a way to provide positive reinforcement as well as critical feedback on how we can improve. Students have mentioned the inconsistency of our advising model and different resources for advising depending on major. They have indicated that sometimes they have been advised to take courses that don’t meet major requirements. Transfer students or students changing majors often express concern about courses we will not accept for major or general education credit which appear to meet graduation requirements. Students also cite individual staff and faculty who deserve recognition for their positive engagement with students.
advisesb@iusb.edu would be monitored by the Chancellor’s Office and the Office of Academic Affairs, who will forward comments to the appropriate Dean or student services director.
I’d be glad to discuss these initiatives with the faculty at the Academic Senate meeting.
This proposal was replaced in part or in full by the April memo from EVC Joseph to the professional advisors.
