Survey Says...?

By the end of this week, administrators in University Hall are likely to have finished preparing this year’s “senior survey,” an approximately 30-minute long questionnaire given to all students graduating from Harvard College. By May, the survey will be available online for seniors to complete, a requirement before they can pick up their Commencement tickets. At some point, almost all members of the Class of 2004 will evaluate their experiences at Harvard, answering questions like “What is your level of satisfaction with your House?” and “How satisfied were you with the degree of Faculty contact in your concentration?” on a scale from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied).

Unless the Office of the Dean of Harvard College changes its tune, however, at no point in the future will the survey’s full results be released publicly. As has been the case for the past 10 years of the senior survey’s existence, the University community—including the students who will collectively spend hundreds of hours rating their Harvard careers—will not be able to see the findings.

Honest reporting of results by researchers is a necessity for advancing knowledge in the search for truth. At a University with “veritas” on its seal, the same full, honest reporting should be a priority for administrators as well.

The information gathered in the results of the survey is exceptionally valuable for determining how the College can improve the experiences of its students. Part of the survey remains the same each year to allow for cross-year comparisons and part changes depending on the desired focus for the year. With the curricular review in progress, the survey given to the Class of 2003 asked 40 of its 72 questions about the academic experience at the college. But while discussions rage about how the College’s academic program can be improved, most of the results of these survey questions remain hidden. When public discussion is well-informed, the community is much more likely to push for positive changes. Due to the existing antiquated policy, however, the senior survey data can only achieve a portion of its potential.

Some of the survey findings have been released publicly and other data is shared internally, according to Associate Dean of the College Jeffrey Wolcowitz. “We do share relevant results with the Houses and the concentrations and other offices, and they find them very helpful as they review programs and policies,” Wolcowitz wrote in an e-mail.

Yet while internal discussion of survey results in no doubt valuable, the release of the survey data can further encourage change by adding the incentive of public accountability. The slivers of data that have been publicly released in the past, including data on academic advising broken down by department, have helped to spark improvements. After releasing selected advising data from the senior surveys of 1997 and 1999, former Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 identified five large departments that had improved their overall advising satisfaction scores by at least a quarter point on the five-point scale between 1999 and 2001. Only two of the remaining 11 large departments showed an equivalent decrease.

While some proponents of keeping the survey results secret might argue that presenting data on student satisfaction with their House masters or senior tutors could lead to uncomfortable embarrassment of these individuals, it is a cost worth enduring. Public announcement of survey results inherently employs both the carrot of praise and the stick of embarrassment to encourage improvements in the residential experience and the academic program.

Professors recognize this importance of public scrutiny and submit their courses to the CUE guide evaluation, which allows students to rate classes and professors, generating data that is circulated to all undergraduates the following year. Students find the CUE data valuable in making course selections, just as they would find the senior survey results beneficial in identifying deficiencies and lobbying for effective improvements at the College.

Other colleges make an effort to collect and publicly release senior survey data. Columbia University’s Office of Student Affairs conducts an optional Enrolled Student Survey and then begins an open process of discussion and interpretation of the results, including focus groups to address the issues raised by the survey, according to the Columbia Spectator. Many state schools are also required to release data to meet institutional accountability requirements and some make them available to prospective students on the internet. When schools like Harvard refrain from sharing their data, however, they cannot help but appear as though they have something to hide.

Currently, no administrative discussion is underway about the logic of making the senior survey results public. As Wolcowitz wrote in an e-mail, “As far as I know, the question of public reports has never been discussed. The data as they exist are really not very helpful, except with some summary statistics and interpretation, and no one has prepared such an interpretive essay.” Students and faculty concerned with improving Harvard will find value in an analysis of the raw data and an open discussion of the results. Harvard ought not keep valuable information from those who hope to improve the College; veritas will remain elusive if research is not shared with the world.

Judd B. Kessler ’04 is an economics concentrator in Adams House. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays.