Reflecting on CCU's Feel the Teal campaign
As the school year comes to a close for our students and Commencement draws closer, I, like many of our graduating seniors, find myself in a reflective state. I enjoy hearing the stories of success related to our service priority and our areas of improvement. However, it is not always easy for our students to share this information with us as a University.
Recently, Feel the Teal® hosted small focus groups for random sets of students. The goal was to determine areas of service excellence that we as a University need to stop doing, start doing or continue doing. Our new service excellence program coordinator, Nick DeStefano, hosted approximately 80 students across 10 separate groups. Nick has shared some of the initial findings with me, and I would like to pass those along. Listed below are the top two responses we received from students when we asked what the University should stop, start and continue.
STOP:
1. Making large-scale decisions that affect students without allowing students the chance to give input. Students shared a common frustration about recent decisions being made without an opportunity to provide feedback.
2. Making it feel like potential or incoming students are the priority.
START:
1. Training all student workers on Feel the Teal. Students can tell the difference between those who care about their jobs and those who don't.
2. Explaining the reason behind large decisions and posting them more often and in more places, not just with one or two emails. It was suggested that alerts be posted in places where students visit online frequently, such as Moodle, webmail and WebAdvisor.
CONTINUE:
1. Creating personal connections between faculty, staff and advisers, which was brought up as a highlight of many students’ experience. They raved about employees who care and take time to make them feel important.
2. Hosting large events and activities that happen on Prince Lawn. This was brought up in every group. Students want to see CINO Day, Organization Kickoff and other activities continue because they say these events allow them to meet people, and ithey make campus fun.
I appreciate the feedback we received from these students. We will further research the concerns and ideas that were shared so that we can do our best to address them.
As for what the students said we need to continue, I’d like to express my gratitude. Thank you for “feeling the teal” and creating connections with our students. These focus groups made it resoundingly clear that you and our employees truly Feel the Teal!
Sincerely,
David A. DeCenzo, Ph.D.
President
