PAFA Survey Results and winner of the drawing!

First of all, the Parent & Family Association (PAFA) Advisory Council would like to thank all 304 of you who completed the recent PAFA satisfaction survey. Your responses as well as suggestions and feedback provide us with a wealth of information and some wonderful ideas as to how we can be more responsive to our membership. Here are some highlights from the survey data collected as of today’s date:

• We received a great sampling from respondents who are parents of first-year students (29%), sophomores (27%), juniors (21%), seniors (22%). Four percent of the parents in the Associate of Arts in Minneapolis program responded.
• Parents indicated that they are well aware of services including our Parent UPDATE (both electronic and hard copy) the PAFA programming events and the PAFA Resource web site.
• Regarding the Parent UPDATE, 97% of the respondents indicated that they read the Parent Update (“sometimes” or “always”); and, 93% of the respondents rated the Parent Update as “good” to “excellent” in terms of overall quality. Additionally, 96% of you told us that we publish the Parent UPDATE about the right amount of times per semester, although many of you commented that you would like to receive more issues. Ninety-six percent of you indicated that the Parent UPDATE offers timely information and 95% indicated that this publication is inclusive of different cultures.
• Regarding the PAFA web site, 78% of you use this web site “sometimes” or “always” and, 94% indicated that the information provided is helpful to you as parents. Ninety-four percent of you told us that it was easy to navigate, 90% indicated that it is easy to find information and 92% indicated that its content is inclusive of your cultural experience.

Suggestions you made for improving the web site included highlighting achievements of faculty, staff and students, provide articles that would feature information on staff, how to access and become aware of the ACTC resources and consortium and, provide more information on scholarships.

• Only 26% of you told us that you have attended the PAFA Speaker Series and only 8% have used the Podcasts of the speaker series. A number of you were unaware of the Podcasts on the PAFA web site that features our speaker series events, designed for out-state and out-of-state parents who are unable to attend live events. Many of you indicated that offering programs on a Saturday or Sunday would fit your schedule better than an evening during the week. Nevertheless, you told us that you are busy people with young children at home so weekends may be a better time to offer speaker series events. You also had great suggestions for expanding topics that would include arts, politics, how to prepare your student for life after college as well as supporting students with disabilities. These are wonderful suggestions that will inform our future programming.
• For parents who have received a copy of the Resource Calendar (provided to parents of first year students only), 96% of you told us that the calendar is very helpful for you in learning about important services and programs. And 85% of you told that you use it to keep track of deadlines and referring your student to various programs. Many of you requested that this publication be provided to you as parents for subsequent years.
• Other important feedback including some great ideas for Family Weekend programming that included involving more faculty and staff to provide interesting lectures, having more opportunities to engage with faculty and staff informally and, to provide more opportunities to visit with other families. You also asked us to keep you updated with current events taking place in the O’Shaughnessy as well as events planned by Student Activities, the Residence halls. (Links to these events are on the PAFA web site).

We want to thank you again. The Advisory Council will be reviewing the comprehensive data of all surveys in the next few weeks; you should expect to see some of your suggestions/ideas implemented in the coming year.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!! And the winner is…..Jeff Salmonsen, father of Shelby Salmonsen, a first year, Business Administration student on the St. Paul campus. Jeff is the winner of the random drawing for completing the survey. Jeff will receive a Gift Basket from the St. Kate’s Bookstore. Again, thank you all who participated in this very helpful survey.