The AMS Academic Experience Survey was recently distributed to UBC Vancouver undergraduate students. We caught up with Daniel Munro, Associate Vice President, Academic and University Affairs, to tell us about some of the major findings.
Daniel Munro, Associate Vice President, Academic and University Affairs
From March to April 2015, almost 3,000 UBC undergraduate students responded to the 2015 AMS Academic Experience Survey. Now in its fourth year, this annual survey enhances the AMS’s ability to advocate on behalf of students and to deliver its own services, by providing a direct line to students’ opinions about their UBC experiences. The annual report on the survey results gives us a chance to update the UBC community on work being done by various campus groups based on priorities students themselves have identified.
Each year, many key insights come from questions about students’ overall experiences with UBC and their campus community. In this year’s survey, 70% of students indicated that they are satisfied with their overall experience, a number which increased from 2014. While we are delighted to see this positive trend, there are still key areas in which satisfaction is severely lacking. In particular, a majority of students do not feel that they receive good value for their tuition fees, and only 20% agree that UBC cares what students think about the cost of education. These frustrations are expressed by students every year, indicating the importance of continued partnership between the AMS and UBC on finance-related issues. Over the coming year, we will continue advocating for mitigation of increases to tuition, as well as continue to encourage the university to invest tuition and housing fees into Counselling and other health and wellbeing services. What makes the latter point of particular concern is the fact that students consistently report experiencing unhealthy levels of stress or anxiety, even more so this year than in 2014.
Also of concern is the fact that many students feel unsafe at UBC. A large number do not feel safe on campus at night, and this is especially true among women. Furthermore, more than half of students report experiencing discrimination on campus, particularly those among certain genders, ages, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. The AMS and its services, particularly Safewalk and the Sexual Assault Support Centre, will continue to work with UBC to prioritize safety on campus by enhancing existing services and policies.
This year, questions about students’ academic experiences turned up many interesting results about the structure and design of academic programs and the UBC academic year. Many students report facing barriers to registering in required courses, often causing them to take longer than 4 years to complete their degrees or to take core major requirements during the summer term. Unfortunately, however, students are much less satisfied with the quality and variety of summer courses than winter courses. Beginning this year, we hope to partner with UBC Enrolment Services to determine the cause of this dissatisfaction, and to create recommendations for how summer terms can be better utilized. Also based on this year’s results, we plan to work with the UBC Vancouver Senate to determine possible models for implementing a fall term reading break, as well as to explore ways for making assessment of student learning more flexible in UBC courses.
Last, but far from least, the Academic Experience Survey allows us to take a critical eye to the AMS itself as an organization. Among the most exciting results that have come out of the survey is the fact that, since 2012, awareness and use of AMS Services overall has increased significantly, with awareness being especially high for Safewalk, the Sexual Assault Support Centre, and AMS Tutoring. Unfortunately, very few students report that they are well informed about the AMS, that the AMS does a good job of representing students’ academic and financial interests, or that they trust the AMS to spend their student fees wisely. Over the coming months, the AMS VP Academic and University Affairs will be conducting a large number of face- to-face consultations with students, in order to determine what students themselves consider the best methods for engaging them in campus issues and the work of the AMS.
To download the full 2015 Academic Experience Survey Report, as well as reports from previous years, visit http://www.ams.ubc.ca/leadership/executive/submissions/. Any questions about the survey can be directed to the AMS VP Academic and University Affairs at vpacademic@ams.ubc.ca.