To the Editors:

On April 18, students who are expecting to graduate this spring will receive an e-mail message from the Office of Institutional Research announcing the 2004 Senior Survey.

The message will briefly explain the purpose of the survey and provide a link to the web-based instrument. Participation is of course voluntary but I encourage you to complete the survey.

This is one of many ways Oberlin assesses our programs and services and information from this survey will be very helpful. The results will be presented to and discussed by decision makers all over campus. Though it’s always nice to see where Oberlin is doing well,
the primary goal of our assessment efforts is program-improvement.

It’s important to collect reliable data to determine areas of weak-
ness so we can target them for improvement.

Under no circumstances will individual responses be released or reviewed. All analyses will be performed and presented using aggregated data without identifying information. As a token of our appreciation, five randomly selected respondents will each receive a $20 gift certificate from the Oberlin College Bookstore.

When you receive the e-mail, please give it careful consideration. The survey should only take about 25 minutes to complete and since it is on the web, you can do it at your convenience.

–Ross Peacock
Director of
Institutional Research