In an online survey conducted earlier this year, students said UTRGV has strengths in community, pride and diversity, but can improve in three areas: academic support and faculty interaction; leadership, missions and values; and communication and collaboration.
The online survey was administered by ModernThink from March 26 to April 13 and received 2,213 student responses, or a 9 percent response rate.
The student survey results revealed only 64 percent of students believe, “If I am concerned about another student’s behavior, I know how to report that to the institution.”
Sixty-three percent of students agree “this institution values student opinions.” Fourteen percent of students disagreed.
Sixty-one percent of students agree they “can speak up or challenge a traditional way of doing something without fear of harming my academic advancement.” Sixteen percent disagree.
Seventy-eight percent of students believe “this institution actively contributes to the community.” Only 5 percent disagreed.
Eighty-four percent of students agree, “At this institution, people are supportive of other people regardless of their heritage, background or sexual orientation.” Only 4 percent disagree.
“Students felt pretty positively that they felt people are really supportive of them as individuals of them regardless of what background or history they might have or their identity,” said Rebecca Gadson, associate vice president of Student Life and dean of students.
Gadson, who serves on the Climate Survey Steering Committee, explained one of the big values of the UTRGV Strategic Initiatives, or the university’s core priorities to further guide UTRGV’s direction, is talking about how it values diversity, access and inclusion.
“Having students respond to these questions as highly as they did tells us that there are some things we are doing at the institution that … individuals feel like they matter at the institution,” she said.
Gadson also said another area that received positive response was students believe they are treated fairly.
“It is important that our students feel like they matter as individuals and that they’re being treated fairly,” she said.
Gadson said she would like for more students to be aware about the support resources available to them.
“Some of the things that I think that look like action items to me is making sure that students know where to go if they are worried about a peer or themselves,” she said. “That particular question indicated that just over the majority of the students knew how to access, maybe, support resources or report concerns about fellow peers or students if they were worried about them and, to me, our university is full of support resources and services.”
Another survey statement Gadson addressed was “The courses I need to register for are offered on the campus I prefer to attend.” Only 58 percent of students agreed.
“That also means that 42 percent were neutral to that, or said that’s not the case for me,” she said. “I think that’s a real opportunity for us to look at not only courses, but also the kinds of events being offered to make sure we are distributing those experiences in very equitable ways so that all of our students can benefit from them.”
UTRGV conducted a meeting in which students, faculty and staff were invited to discuss the student survey results.
Dean of the College of Fine Arts Steve Block, who attended the meeting, encouraged people to attend Campus Connect meetings.
“Anybody can come, and I would encourage people to come,” Block said. “The idea is to do problem-solving.”
He said the group met for three to four hours and discussed issues important to them.
“It’s time for us to do problem-solving, regarding how we connect both campuses. … At the end of this meeting, we came up with two important initiatives that were most important to us. … It’s only at the beginning stages that we’re talking about ways, what we have to look at most importantly, to connect the campuses better, to be understood as one campus. We’re one institution.”
Yaw Sam, a marketing junior, also spoke during the meeting on the climate survey.
“I also do think that, it’s kind of like a broad subject, but we should also make available the very worst … so that we can address those issues and not just the positives,” Sam said. “We need to get more of the negative aspects of the survey.”
For the full student climate survey results, visit https://www.utrgv.edu/strategic-plan/_files/documents/pdf/climate-survey-results-110518.pdf.
