TABLE 5

It appears that Earlham students modestly improved their social self-confidence and their self-understanding during their first year. 

Students were asked to indicate if their skills had improved compared with college entry.  Table 6 shows their responses.

TABLE 6

The greatest increase in skills was noted in their knowledge of people from different races/cultures and understanding of global issues.  These percentages were also significantly higher than those from other private colleges.

Comparisons can also be made as to objectives that the students considered to be essential or very important upon entering college and after one year of college.  The following table shows the percentage of students who considered these objectives to be “essential” or “very important”.

TABLE 7

After one year at Earlham, a greater percentage of students consider all of these objectives to be very important or essential.  First-year students at Earlham are less concerned with becoming an authority in their field than students from other colleges.  They are more concerned with developing a meaningful philosophy of life and helping promote racial understanding. 

SATISFACTION

The survey asked students to rate their satisfaction with various parts of their college experience.  Table 8 indicated that 80.3% of the Earlham first-year students rated their overall college experience as satisfied or very satisfied.  It appears that Earlham first-year students are more satisfied than students from other colleges with the amount of contact they have with faculty, opportunities available for community service, and the overall quality of instruction.  Earlham faculty members have been more successful than faculty at other colleges in making the coursework relevant to everyday life and to the students’ future.

TABLE 8

Ninety-one percent of Earlham students reported that the courses they took during their first year of college inspired them to think in new ways.  Seventy-eight percent of students from other colleges reported the same.  Sixty-two percent of Earlham students felt that their social life interfered with their schoolwork compared to 48% of students from other colleges.

Students were asked to rate their satisfaction with other aspects of the campus.  The percentage of students who indicated they were satisfied or very satisfied is shown in Table 9.

TABLE 9

There are a smaller percentage of Earlham students who are satisfied with housing facilities compared to students from other colleges.  However, the Earlham students were more satisfied with their orientation and with library facilities and services than students from other colleges.

We chose to add supplemental questions to this survey.  These questions are unique to Earlham and therefore we did not receive comparison results to other colleges.

The students were asked to rate Earlham on several characteristics based on their first year experience.  The most popular responses have been highlighted in Table 10.  The mean score is also calculated.  The rating scale used was:             1 = poor/fair; 2 = good; 3 = very good; 4 = excellent.

Most students rated most of these characteristics very good or good.  Based on the mean scores, personal attention to students was rated the highest.  Thirty-five percent of the students rated this characteristic as excellent. 

Also rated high was the chance to be with students from different backgrounds.  Thirty-three percent of the students rated this trait as excellent.  Earlham’s academic reputation was rated high, although the students gave a somewhat lower rating to Earlham as an environment that stresses academic excellence.  The attractiveness of the campus, opportunities for involvement in college governance and quality of academic facilities were rated fairly high. 

The characteristics that were rated as poor or fair by many of the students were their support for varsity athletics, the quality of housing, and the cost to their family.   

The students’ perception of the cost to their family appears to be a major concern for many students.  Thirty-two percent rated that characteristic as poor/fair and the mean rating was 2.0.  However 25% of the students rated cost to their family as very good or excellent.

Access to off-campus cultural and recreational opportunities received a poor rating from 30% of these students. It is assumed that the students interpreted “off-campus” as the Richmond/Dayton/Indianapolis/Cincinnati communities rather than international opportunities.

As we suspected, there are many students at Earlham who do not support varsity athletics.  The self-rating of support of athletics for 30% of the first year students was poor/fair.  The mean rating for athletic support was only 2.1.

TABLE 10 SATISFACTION RATINGS

Characteristic	Poor/Fair	Good	Very Good	Excellent	Can’t rate	Mean
	%	%	%	%	%
Academic reputation	1.6	25.0	46.8	19.1	4.3	2.9
Chance to be with students from different backgrounds	4.3	23.9	34.0	33.0	1.6	3.0
Availability of special academic programs	5.3	33.5	30.3	13.8	13.8	2.6
Personal attention to students	2.1	23.4	35.1	35.6	.5	3.1
Quality of academic facilities	4.8	27.7	47.3	16.5	.5	2.8
Availability of recreational facilities on campus	11.7	25.0	40.4	18.6	1.1	2.7
Quality of on-campus housing	25.5	44.7	22.9	2.7	1.1	2.0
Environment that stresses academic excellence	5.9	43.1	28.2	17.6	2.7	2.6
Attractiveness of campus	6.9	27.7	42.0	19.1	1.6	2.8
Cost to your family	32.4	35.1	17.0	8.5	3.7	2.0
Availability of academic majors	9.6	34.6	36.2	14.9	2.1	2.6
Quality of social life	12.2	31.4	36.7	17.0	2.7	2.6
Access to off-campus cultural and recreational opportunities	30.3	33.5	17.6	10.1	5.3	2.1
Value of the price	10.1	38.3	35.6	9.0	4.3	2.5
Opportunities for involvement in College Governance	3.2	29.3	34.0	16.5	14.4	2.8
Quality of the community in your Residence Hall	12.8	29.3	31.4	21.8	2.1	2.7
Maintenance/housekeeping responsiveness to Residence Hall problems	14.4	41.5	24.5	12.2	4.8	2.4
Quality of engagement during conflicts in Residence Halls	11.2	38.3	22.9	7.4	17.6	2.3
Effectiveness of the “roommate agreement”	19.7	20.2	20.2	15.4	21.8	2.4
Level of your support for varsity athletics on campus	30.3	22.9	19.7	10.1	14.4	2.1
Quality of the varsity sport program if you played varsity sports	8.0	14.4	13.8	5.3	50.5	2.4

Most Earlham students reported feeling completely successful or fairly successful at understanding what their professors expected of them academically.  They feel they have adjusted to the academic demands of college and have developed close friendships with other students.  These feelings were similar to those of students from other private colleges.  There are a greater percentage of first-year Earlham students who feel unsuccessful in developing effective study skills and managing their time effectively compared to students from other colleges.

Since entering college, 39% of Earlham first-year students have decided to pursue a different major compared to 28% of students from other colleges.  Since Earlham students are not required to declare their major until the end of their sophomore year, it is not surprising that only 14% of the first-year students declared their major.  This compares to 44% of students from other colleges.  Earlham had a great percentage of students participating in varsity athletics.  Other colleges had a much greater percentage of students who took a college course or seminar specifically designed to help first-year students adjust to college.  Fifty-eight percent of those students took such a course compared to 23% of Earlham first-year students. 

Ninety-four percent of Earlham’s first year students thought they would be returning to Earlham for the Fall 2002 semester.  This compares to 90.7% of the fist-year students from other colleges indicating expectations of returning to the same college.

DISCUSSION

This survey serves as an aid to understanding our first-year students.  We should be pleased to learn that 80% of these students were satisfied with their first year experience at Earlham.  It is certainly possible that the high level of satisfaction among these students could be instrumental in improving our retention rates. 

There are more Earlham students satisfied with the amount of contact with faculty, opportunities for community service, relevance of coursework to everyday life and the relevance of coursework to their future compared to students from other 4-year colleges.

The first year students at Earlham are being inspired to think in new ways.  This should be an encouragement to the teaching faculty.

Teaching faculty should also be commended for incorporating more opportunities for group discussions and projects in their courses compared to faculty at other colleges.

The survey has also raised some interesting questions.  Should we be concerned that a greater percentage of first year students drank beer, wine, or liquor during their first year at Earlham than they did the year before college?  Should we be even more concerned that the percentage of Earlham students who participate in these activities is greater than the percentage of students at other four-year colleges?  Students at Earlham are more likely to feel that their social life interfered with their schoolwork compared to students from other schools.  Is their alcohol consumption related to this outcome?

We might wonder why our first year students discussed politics and/or religion less during their first year of college than they did their senior year in high school?  Since more than twice as many Earlham students discuss politics and/or religion compared to students from other four year colleges, does this need to be an area of concern?

The percentage of students attending religious services during their first year at Earlham is less than at other 4-year private colleges.  Also, fewer students attended a religious service compared to the number that did so the year before entering college.  Are there sufficient opportunities for students to attend religious services at Earlham?  Should a greater effort be made to inform students of religious services available in the community?  Should transportation be provided to these services? 

The fact that a greater percentage of Earlham students turn in course assignments late and came late to class compared to other 4-year colleges could make us question our students’ self-discipline or the structure provided by the college.  Earlham students were more likely to turn in course assignments that did not reflect their best work.  Would this fact surprise our teaching faculty?  Our students, on the other hand, are more likely to discuss course content with students outside of class which is to be commended.

Another question raised by this survey might be, “Why are Earlham students less likely to have daily contact with their family?”  Is this due to the fact that most Earlham students live a great distance from their families?   Have our students gained more independence from their families compared to students at other 4-year colleges?  Or is their lack of communication with family members a sign of relationship or communication problems?

Thirty-one percent of the first-year students considered creating artistic work a very important or essential objective when they entered Earlham.  That percentage increased to 43% after one year at Earlham.  This compares to only 22% of students from other 4-year colleges.  Earlham aims to graduate students who possess an understanding of the formal dynamics of works of art and also personal creativity and confidence in one’s own ideas.  Can we say that this survey indicates we are making progress in these goals?

The first year at Earlham also appears to have increased students’ desire to develop a meaningful philosophy of life and to help promote racial understanding.  Are the students aware that their values are changing?  Is it apparent to faculty?  And what are the implications of this in relation to our mission statement and goals?

Should we be concerned that we have a greater percentage of students who feel unsuccessful in developing effective study skills and managing their time effectively compared to students from other colleges?  Will our new general education requirements address these problems?

There was a striking difference in the number of students who had declared a major by the end of their first year compared to other colleges.  Should we be encouraging our students to choose a major earlier in their college experience?  Would this help students be more focused in their coursework?  Would they benefit from a sense of belonging to a certain program or department?

Only 62% of these students were satisfied or very satisfied with academic advising.  In another study, parent interviews also revealed dissatisfaction with academic advising among parents of first-year students.  Is there a way we could increase the level of satisfaction?  Would improving academic advising result in increased retention?  It appears that this issue should be studied further.

After one year at Earlham, students were reporting an improved self-rating of their emotional health.  Could this improved emotional health play a part in their satisfaction with their Earlham experience as well as retention?  It is also quite possible that those students with greater emotional problems did not remain at Earlham and thus did not participate in this survey.

It may appear that our diversity goals are being realized even within the first year college experience.  This could be a result of providing the appropriate environment for students to associate with students from different backgrounds.  Of course another possible explanation is that students who came to Earlham are more receptive to diversity issues than students from other 4-year colleges.   

The attractiveness of the campus and the availability of recreational and academic facilities are considered definite assets for the first year student.

The responses to the questions on this survey should be the cause for further study.  The low rating of the quality of on-campus housing might indicate a need for housing to be reviewed.   It might also be advantageous to investigate ways to increase campus support for varsity athletics or to improve access to off-campus cultural and recreational opportunities.

Other possible areas for concern lie in the quality of engagement during conflicts in Residence Halls and the effectiveness of the “roommate agreement”.  Although there were some students who rated these characteristics excellent, almost half of them gave a rating of poor/fair or good. 

It would be helpful if we could determine the reason students do not feel that the Earlham environment necessarily stresses academic excellence, especially since they rate Earlham’s academic reputation as “very good”.  Making teachers aware of their views may be the first step toward change, but further study on this issue would also be helpful.

The YFCY survey has provided useful data on the first year experience.  It will be important to ascertain ways in which we can work to improve those items that need to be addressed.  Additional surveys, interviews, or focus groups could prove helpful in the future to determine if views change.