Complementary learning opportunities in and out of class augment academic programs. Diversity experiences teach students valuable things about themselves and others. Technology facilitates collaboration between peers and instructors. Internships, community service, and senior capstone courses provide opportunities to integrate and apply knowledge.

 

Peace students have consistently recognized the co-curricular nature of learning at the College. Faculty members and Student Development staff work together to create learning opportunities that go well beyond the classroom. Both encourage students to take advantage of the unique opportunities that exist on campus and in the heart of North Carolina's capital city. Great internship and service learning sites surround the Peace College campus, while the wireless campus allows students to access resources around the world. Cultural events, guest speakers, forums, and symposia offer Peace students unique insights into politics, culture, science, and lifestyles that will impact their lives years after graduation.

 

 

Enriching Educational Experiences: Comparisons

The National Survey of Student Engagement reports mean scores (average scores for all students participating in the survey) for each institution and also compares each institution to various other groupings. Peace College is compared to other women's colleges, other institutions within Peace's classification as defined by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (labeled "Peers"), and all other institutions participating in the survey (labeled "NSSE 2007"). The mean scores can be compared to each other for a relative rating.

 

Enriching Educational Experiences: Survey Items

To determine first-year and senior students' involvement in experiences identified as enriching their academic lives, NSSE asked them questions to learn more about their involvement in the following areas:

• Participating in co-curricular activities (organizations, student government, sports, etc.)
• Practicum, internship, field experience, co-op experience, or clinical assignment
• Community service or volunteer work
• Foreign language coursework and study abroad
• Independent study or self-designed major
• Culminating senior experience (comprehensive exam, capstone course, thesis, project, etc.)
• Serious conversations with students of different religious beliefs, political opinions, or personal values
• Serious conversations with students of a different race or ethnicity
• Using electronic technology to discuss or complete an assignment
• Campus environment encouraging contact among students from different economic, social, and racial or ethnic backgrounds
• Participate in a learning community or some other formal program where groups of students take two or more classes together

 

 

A guide to the charts
The 2008 NSSE surveyed 478,079 students at 769 four-year colleges and universities around the country.

 

The NSSE project does not rank institutions. Each school has only their students' scores on the five "benchmarks of effective educational practice" and some comparative information for similar types of colleges (in Peace's case, other women's colleges and liberal arts colleges) as well as national averages established by results from all the institutions that participated in the survey, identified in the charts as "NSSE 2008."

 

The charts display the mean, which is the weighted arithmetic average of students' responses, in each of the five benchmark categories: (1) Level of academic challenge, (2) Active and collaborative learning, (3) Student-faculty interaction, (4) Enriching educational experiences, and (5) Supportive campus environment.

 

The charts are best used by scanning across the bars to see how Peace students' evaluations compare to the scores from students at schools in the comparison groups.

 

The NSSE project does not rank institutions. Each school has only their students' scores on the five "benchmarks of effective educational practice" and some comparative information for similar types of colleges (in Peace's case, other women's colleges and liberal arts colleges) as well as national averages established by results from all the institutions that participated in the survey, identified in the charts as "NSSE 2008."

 

The charts display the mean, which is the weighted arithmetic average of students' responses, in each of the five benchmark categories: (1) Level of academic challenge, (2) Active and collaborative learning, (3) Student-faculty interaction, (4) Enriching educational experiences, and (5) Supportive campus environment.

 

The charts are best used by scanning across the bars to see how Peace students' evaluations compare to the scores from students at schools in the comparison groups.