University administers quality of life survey

Randomly selected students from the senior and sophomore classes received an e-mail last Monday — and another several days later from President Shapiro — inviting them to participate in the online Princeton Experience survey.

The survey — which will evaluate students' well-being at the University — will be similar in some ways to last year's Visions of Princeton, a USG initiative that sought to assess the University's strengths and weaknesses in general. Any student could have participated by answering four open-ended questions.

The Princeton Experience survey will be more specific, according to Vice President for Student Life Janet Dickerson.

It will be "much more carefully constructed, and there is a goal to make sure that the way it's distributed . . . is done so that when we do get the feedback it will really help us," she said. "It won't be just a minority of students."

Associate Provost Georgia Nugent said in an e-mail that the survey seeks to evaluate the total experience of being at Princeton.

"Questions include asking students to describe what has been most important to them here, to identify experiences that were really formative, to provide feedback on some particular aspects of life at Princeton, ranging from sports teams to public safety to precept," she said.

Nugent said the survey includes open-ended questions, so it takes about 40 minutes to complete. It also has 'yes/no' response questions and questions that require students to rate the quality of their Princeton experience on a scale of one to 10.

"We're keenly aware that students don't have much time," Nugent said. "But we hope — as President Shapiro has noted in the letter he sent to all survey participants — that students will take the time to contribute their views, to make Princeton a better place for all students."

Survey designer and Wilson School administrator Herbert Abelson said in an e-mail that sophomores and seniors were chosen because during the survey pilots, they tended to give the most useful information.

"Seniors because they are completing their experience here and have the kinds of insights that we are interested in," he said. "And second-year students because they are still close enough to the residential college experiene to be knowledgeable about it."

"Because we wanted enough African-American and Latino students for separate analysis, we oversampled in those groups," Abelson said. "There are enough Asian-Americans at Princeton so that we do not need any special sampling procedures for that group."

The survey has been in its planning stages for about two years, Abelson said.

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Nugent said that the survey is being sponsored by the offices of the president and the provost.

Its development has been directed by Dickerson, Nugent, Associate Provost Joann Mitchell and Associate Director of Community and State Affairs Karen Woodbridge.

"The information gleaned from the survey will be made available broadly to University administrators and others with responsibility for setting and administering policies and determining direction for Princeton's future," Nugent said.

"With the arrival of a new vice president for campus life this fall and the anticipated arrival of a new president shortly, the information the survey can provide will be extraordinarily valuable," she added.

The survey will take place online through March 11. Beginning March 12, it will be opened to all University students who wish to contribute their opinions. Their views will be reported separately from those of the sample.