Second annual Doane image survey released

Sara Mettlen
Staff Writer
Feb. 26, 2004, Page 1

Doane’s Office of Communication and Marketing presented the results of its second annual image survey to the Cabinet on Feb. 17.
From last year’s results, goals were set for areas that needed improvement.
“All of our short terms goals were met,” Marketing Director Jody Vondra said. Vondra; J.S. Engebretson, executive director of Communication and Marketing; and Rebecca Gonzales, director of Institutional Research, created the survey.
The survey is part of the Integrated Marketing Effort started in 2000, after receiving a grant from the Teagle Foundation.
Administered in March 2003, the survey was distributed by sending all users an e-mail through the Doane intranet.
The e-mail contained a link to an Internet address where the survey could be taken.
Of 965 undergraduate students from the Crete campus, 296 participated in the survey or 24.5 percent. Also, 38 of 77 full-time faculty responded or 49.4 percent.
Vondra said that it will not be clear if the long term goals are being met until five years of taking the surveys.
One area that saw improvement was communication between the administration and faculty and students.
The survey showed that 46 percent of students feel they are “always” or “usually” informed of decisions made by the administration, up 11 percent from last year’s results.
One area that showed a need for improvement is the cost of attending. Forty one percent of Crete students ranked the cost of attending as a mediocre 3 on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being poor and 5 being excellent.
The image of the Greek system received considerably lower ratings than other programs.
Forty percent of the faculty gave the image of the Greek system a poor 2 or 1 rating, and only 8 percent gave a positive rating of 4 or 5.
Conversely, 32 percent of students gave the image of the Greek system a rating of 4 or 5, however, 25 percent of students gave the Greek system a 2 or 1 rating and 25 percent reported no opinion. Also, 100 percent of the Cabinet rated the Greek system a 4 or 5.
Tim McArdle, president of Inter-Fraternity Council, accentuated the Cabinet’s response.
“They [the Cabinet] see a lot of the good things the Greek system brings to the college,” McArdle said.
McArdle also said that it seems like the Greeks get into trouble because a lot of them live in the quads, where a majority of problems occur.
He said that most people do not see the good things, such as community service, that the Greek organizations do.
As for the faculty’s views on the Greek system, McArdle said that the faculty only sees the Greeks in class, so they judge them as individuals or in small groups, not the big picture.
Overall, the results were not surprising to McArdle.
“It’s no secret that a lot of people on campus don’t like the Greek system,” McArdle said. “We’re always trying to improve our image.”
The results of this image survey were used to set goals for the survey that will be administered in March.
“Because it is such a new instrument and the image questions were new, it will be interesting to see the changes,” Vondra said.