Students perform better and are more satisfied at colleges that are committed to their success and cultivate positive working and social relations among different groups on campus.

 

Peace College students always rate the supportive campus environment to be among the tops in the country. The "Peace Family" consisting of administrative staff, faculty members, and support staff consciously work together to create a climate that welcomes students to the learning environment. From the president down, everyone employed at the College sees it as her or his mission to promote positive relationships, relationships that produce highly satisfied students, who later become engaged alumnae.

 

 

Supportive Campus Environment: 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.

 

Supportive Campus Environment: Survey Items

To determine first-year and senior students' experiences concerning the level of support they get on their campuses, NSSE asked them questions to learn more about the following areas:

• Campus environment provides the support you need to help you succeed academically
• Campus environment helps you cope with your non-academic responsibilities (work, family, etc.)
• Campus environment provides the support you need to thrive socially
• Quality of relationships with other students
• Quality of relationships with faculty members
• Quality of relationships with administrative personnel and offices

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.