Over the last few years, Oberlin has undertaken a systematic program
of surveying students and alumni as part of the outcomes-assessment
process required for our decennial re-accreditation. Last winter,
we participated in a national survey of college and university
faculty sponsored by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI)
- the same group that administers the Survey of American Freshmen
in which we have participated for the last 25 years. A summary
of the national results were published in a recent issue of the
Chronicle of Higher Education.
In addition to questions on course evaluation methods, publishing
activity , stress levels and other items relevant to the life
of a faculty member, the faculty survey has some questions in
common with student surveys administered at Oberlin. Given this
commonality, I thought it might be interesting to compare the
social/political views of the two groups and to try to determine
if the goals our faculty have are consistent, or at least compatible
with the goals of our undergraduates. In a future issue of the
Observer, a comparison of faculty responses to some items
on the survey with national norms will be presented.
The results presented here represent faculty and students in the
college and conservatory.
Personal Goals
In this set of questions, faculty and students are asked to rate
the importance of the following statements to them personally.
Here we have responses from faculty, students entering in the
fall of 1995 (freshman survey) and students graduating in May
1996 (COFHE Senior Survey).
| Personal Goals Considered Very Important Or Essential | |||
| Influence political structure | 10% | 29% | 30% |
| Be involved in environmental clean-up | 25% | 35% | 24% |
| Be very well-off financially | 27% | 35% | 22% |
| Influence social values | 31% | 44% | 56% |
| Obtain recognition from colleagues | 50% | 54% | 46% |
| Become authority in own field | 56% | 65% | 61% |
| Help others in difficulty | 61% | 66% | 78% |
| Promote racial understanding | 61% | 59% | 64% |
| Raise a family | 67% | 53% | 62% |
| Develop meaningful philosophy of life | 74% | 74% | 75% |
Although not a perfect fit, there is still a fairly high level
of congruence between the personal goals of our faculty and those
of our students - certainly in the relative importance of those
goals within each group.
Political Orientation and Views
A major purpose of the Survey of American Freshmen is to provide
time-series data on student views of relevant political and social
issues. In this regard, Oberlin students have remained remarkably
stubborn in their liberal outlooks. The faculty survey asked
similar questions on issues of the day. We start here with how
our faculty and students label themselves politically.
| Political Orientation | ||
| Far right | 0% | 1% |
| Conservative | 5% | 5% |
| Far left | 8% | 12% |
| Middle-of-the-road | 22% | 23% |
| Liberal | 65% | 60% |
As with the Personal Goals, there is a high level of agreement
in where our students and faculty place themselves in the political
spectrum. Because the meaning of political labels can change
over the years, the authors of both surveys provide a battery
of questions which among other things, also serve to measure the
liberal/conservative views of the respondents. Unfortunately,
there are very few questions in common between the two surveys
but looking at the entire battery for both groups allows us to
make a comparison.
| Percent Agreeing Strongly or Somewhat Strongly | |
| College increases earning power | 8% |
| Community service should be required for graduation | 22% |
| College can ban extreme speakers | 23% |
| Tenure is outmoded concept | 24% |
| Diversity yields under-prepared students | 33% |
| Western Civ should be the foundation of Undergraduate curriculum | 44% |
| Colleges can Prohibit racist/sexist speech | 46% |
| Community service should be given weight in admission | 55% |
| Abolish death penalty | 66% |
| Colleges should be involved in social problems | 68% |
| Tenure attracts best to academe | 69% |
| Colleges should encourage students do community service | 85% |
| National health care plan needed | 89% |
| Abortion should be legal | 96% |
| Percent Agreeing Strongly or Somewhat Strongly | |
| Society should prohibit homosexual relations | 6% |
| Racial discrimination no longer problem | 7% |
| Married women best at home | 8% |
| Society should deny educational access to undocumented child | 13% |
| Individual can do little to change society | 20% |
| Abolish affirmative action in college admissions | 37% |
| College can prohibit racist/sexist speech | 43% |
| Too much concern for criminals | 47% |
| Raise taxes to reduce deficit | 49% |
| Don't obey laws that violate per | 51% |
| Abolish death penalty | 54% |
| Employers can require drug tests | 57% |
| Marijuana should be legalized | 59% |
| Sex OK if people like each other | 59% |
| Wealthy should pay more taxes | 80% |
| National health care plan needed | 84% |
| Abortion should be legal | 88% |
| Govt not doing enough to control pollution | 93% |
| Man not entitled to sex on date | 93% |
| Federal government should do more control handguns | 94% |
| Better education and job opportunities would reduce crime | 94% |
The four questions in common, prohibit racist/sexist speech, national
health care plan needed, and to a lesser extent abolish death
penalty, and abortion should be legal again show a fairly high
level of agreement between students and faculty when it comes
to social/political views.
Faculty Goals for Undergraduates and Senior Self-Reports
of Skills/Knowledge Enhancement
Assessment is naturally a very goal- centered process and departments have been hard at work developing goals for majors and non-majors and identifying ways by which achievement of those goals can be measured. In the faculty survey, respondents are asked to rate the importance of general goals for undergraduates. The 1996 Senior Survey asked graduates to rate their level of enhancement in a variety of areas. As was the case in the previous section, only some questions are the same but looking at each group's responses to all of the questions helps us determine the level of congruence.
Faculty Goals for Undergraduates
| Percent Responding Very Important or Essential | |
| Prepare for family living | 7% |
| Instill commitment to community services | 28% |
| Enhance out-of-class experience | 30% |
| Teach classics or Western Civ | 36% |
| Provide for emotional development | 38% |
| Develop moral character | 44% |
| Prepare for responsible citizenship | 45% |
| Help develop personal values | 49% |
| Prepare for employment | 56% |
| Enhance self-understanding | 60% |
| Prepare for graduate education | 72% |
| Increase self-directed learning | 98% |
| Develop ability to think clearly | 100% |
Senior Self-Reports
| Percent Reporting Skill/Knowledge was Greatly Enhanced | |
| Function Effectively as a Member of a Team | 17% |
| Read or Speak a Foreign Language | 18% |
| Establish Course of Action To Accomplish Goals | 22% |
| Use Quantitative Tools | 24% |
| Lead and Supervise Tasks and People | 26% |
| Evaluate and Choose Between Courses of Action | 28% |
| Understand Role of Science and Technology in Society | 28% |
| Relate Well to People of Different Races, Nations | 30% |
| Develop Self-Esteem/Self Confidence | 30% |
| Communicate Well Orally | 33% |
| Synthesize and Integrate Idea and Information | 34% |
| Plan and Execute Complex Projects | 36% |
| Acquire Broad Knowledge in Arts and Sciences | 38% |
| Formulate Creative/Original Ideas and Solutions | 41% |
| Place Current Problems in Perspective | 42% |
| Appreciate Art, Literature, Music, Drama | 43% |
| Identify Moral and Ethical Issues | 45% |
| Function Independently, Without Supervision | 47% |
| Develop Awareness of Social Problems | 48% |
| Write Effectively | 52% |
| Gain in-depth Knowledge of a Field | 52% |
| Think Analytically and Logically | 54% |
| Acquire New Skills and Knowledge on Own | 58% |
| Understand Myself: Abilities, Interests etc. | 60% |
Though stated somewhat differently, life-long learning skills
are reported by seniors as those enhanced to the greatest degree.
Those are the same type of goals our faculty rate as the most
important for undergraduates to develop.
One of the top three goals for undergraduates by faculty is preparing
students for graduate school. This fits well with the goals of
first year students as they enter. Ninety-three percent of the
respondents to the freshmen survey stated they had degree aspirations
beyond the Bachelor of Arts. Other surveys show that at the time
of graduation from Oberlin, only 20% plan to enter graduate school
full-time but within a year, over 40% will have been enrolled
in some kind of post-baccalaureate program. That number climbs
higher the further away students get from Oberlin and result in
Oberlin still producing the largest number of future PhD's of
any predominantly liberal arts institution in the country based
on the latest data from the National Science Foundation/National
Research Council Doctorate Records File.
Satisfaction with Choice
Although clearly different in its intent both the faculty and
senior surveys include a question about the career/school choice
each group has made. Seventy-six percent of the seniors responding
to the 96 senior survey said the "probably" or "definitely"
would encourage a high school senior similar to them when they
were in high school to attend Oberlin College (an increase from
1994 when 65% answered the same question the same way). Similarly
the faculty were asked to reflect on their choice of a career
in academe. Eighty-one percent reported that they "probably"
or "definitely" still wanted to be a college professor.
I am grateful to the faculty and students who took time out of
their busy days to complete these surveys. They can take heart
in the fact that my office continues to inflict similar pain on
current students and alumni as we try to assess the effectiveness
of our academic and social programs and generally understand the
effect that the Oberlin experience has on our students.
Obviously these tables represent a very small portion of the surveys.
Readers desiring more complete summaries may either contact
my office (I have limited hard-copies for distribution) or download
tables from the web by pointing their browser to the Institutional
Research Home Page (http://peacock.adm.oberlin.edu/ir.html) and
selecting the "Faculty Profile" and "Assessment"
links. Your bonus for taking the cyber-route will be having access
to a wealth of outcomes-related information and other data about
Oberlin, our faculty and our students.