Survey results: You asked, we told

This past spring, the Parent and Family Association conducted an online survey to assess the ways in which the association was serving its members. Eighty-two families responded to our survey. They represented parents from first-year, sophomore, junior and senior students. Five percent of the respondents had students who were attending classes on the Minneapolis campus.

Methods of communication
Parents told us that they most appreciated receiving the Parent Update newsletter, that the Parent and Family Association website was heavily utilized and that the website easily connected them to other information about the University. In fact, 92 percent of the respondents indicated that the overall quality of the website was “excellent” to “good.”

Parent Speaker Series
Sixty-eight percent of the respondents knew about our year-long speaker series. However, only 15 percent of the respondents were able to access these events. When asked about the best time to offer our speaker events, half of the respondents indicated that they would like the events to take place on weekends, with a Saturday morning time slot noted as a great possibility. Suggested speaker event topics included:

• Spiritual development of college students
• Reflective Women primer
• Networking opportunities for parents,
• Helicopter parents - what is the appropriate amount of involvement to have with your student
• Adjustment to college
• Benefits of living on-campus

A number of families were not aware that our speaker series could also be viewed on the Web via the University’s media site.

Additional suggestions
Other suggestions from parents included providing more information about J-term course availability, spotlighting international students, explaining the role of academic advising and reaching out to the families who live out of state as well as out of the country. We will do our best to do this.

Several parents indicated that they would be willing to serve as an internship site, serve as a resource for informational interviews, volunteer to assist with Parent and Family Association events and programs, as well as post jobs or internships with our Career Development office. We will take you up on those offers.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this survey. And, congratulations to the lucky winner of our parent gift basket, Brenda Gledert, mother of Katlyn.