Eastern seeks to enrich the lives of students inside the classroom and out.

Eastern has launched a program to better understand the academic, and non-academic elements of students, and find ways to improve both.

“It’s the whole student, that’s what Eastern’s about, it’s not just about developing the mind, but the whole person,” said Dan Nadler, vice president for student affairs.

The National Survey of Student Engagement is the tool the university plans to use when assessing how well it is preparing students for their futures.

The survey will give faculty a way to measure the interactions and learning environment experienced by freshmen and seniors.

The survey is taken by freshmen and seniors to provided data on students coming into and going out of Eastern.

About 3,400 students have been sent invitations to take part in the study. Roughly 500 have taken the survey.

Last year, 1 million students participated in the survey nationally.

This is part of a long-term plan, which Nadler said aims to make Eastern the best school in the country.

The school will receive the results of the survey in August and will then distribute the information to the faculty and staff through committees.

The information will be specific to committees that will use the information to improve the areas they are involved in.

The information could be used to improve the schools integrative learning initiative or to increase Eastern’s already high retention rate said Mary Herrington-Perry, assistant vice president for academic affairs.

Some of the questions asked if the student had written two drafts for a paper, made a class presentation, or come to class unprepared, but others asked about communications with professors outside of class and what kind of volunteer work the student had participated in.

“What students do and learn outside the classroom makes their experiences in the classroom richer and more meaningful,” Herrington-Perry said. “What they learn in the classroom helps to guide and shape their external experiences.”

Part of the integrative learning concept is for students to take what they have learned outside the classroom in an internship or job to provide additional knowledge for the student when they go back into the classroom.

The college internship has become especially important.

“Nationally, of the employers who hired this fall, 90 percent of the people they hired were interns,” said Linda Moore, director of career services, in an article in the Feb. 11 edition of The Daily Eastern News.

The survey contains questions relating to cultural diversity which Herrington-Perry said will help administrators understand the impact of requiring students to take courses with cultural diversity embedded into them.

Nadler said he has seen a significant increase in diversity among students and faculty since he started working here.

The schools plans to use the data effectively may be hindered.

As of now, the school has only received 18 percent of responses, while schools similar to Eastern typically receive responses from an average 31 percent of participants.

Between now and March 23, students will be sent two reminders to participate in the study.

A response rate of 20 percent is needed for the survey to be valid, but Herrington-Perry said it is possible for the final rate to be much higher.

The survey is accessed by a link included in the notice e-mail sent to students and takes about 15 minutes to complete.

“But the more students who complete the NSSE, the more assured we’ll be that the final results truly represent their experiences,” Herrington-Perry said.

James Roedl can be reached at jmroedl@eiu.edu or 581-7924