The Whitworthian

Issue date: 11/20/07 Last Updated: 11/19/07

Nearly 96 percent of alumni respondents indicated that their current opinion of Whitworth was either "good" or "excellent" in an online Alumni Attitude Survey conducted by Institutional Research last spring.

More than 1,500 alumni responded to the survey, commenting on areas such as community service, reputation of the school and alumni and career-related activities.

Tad Wisenor, director of alumni, parent and church relations, worked with Performance Enhancement Group, Ltd. (PEG) to complete the 2007 Alumni Attitude Study.

PEG is an organizational development firm based in Houston.

The online survey asked alumni about their experience as a student, experience as an alumni and overall feelings about Whitworth.

Rob Shoss, a founding member of PEG, said he considers the positive response from alumni to be above average compared to other schools.

Another thing that stuck out to Shoss in Whitworth's results was the importance placed on community service.

Respondents rated "outreach to community" as third most important in impacting their overall opinion of the school, according to the study.

First most important in impacting opinions was "value/respect for the degree," and second was "providing scholarships."

When asked what activities alumni participated in while they were students, Shoss said 60 percent of younger alumni and 40 percent of older alumni said they were involved in community service.

"Community service stood out as more of a core value to alumni from your institution," Shoss said. "For you it comes out more than the norm."

The study found that alumni want to know that their diploma is increasing in equity. Wisenor said alumni like to see the reputation of Whitworth increasing because that it turn makes their diplomas look better.

Wisenor cited the name change to Whitworth University, the increased quality of incoming students and faculty and student achievements as examples of things alumni like to hear about.

According to the study, alumni are interested in activities that keep them connected to Whitworth both on campus and near their homes.

"A higher percentage of our graduates live out of state or more than 250 miles away. So that means that there are fewer alumni in the region who are able to come back to events on campus," Wisenor said. "This just highlights something for us that we've always been aware of, that we have to work differently and work better to provide programming for alumni who live outside of the Spokane area."

Wisenor said alumni events can be tied to athletic events or musical performances outside of Spokane.

The alumni office also plans alumni events such as faculty lectures for specific cities.

Wisenor said the study found that alumni would like to see more career-related activities.

"Part of it is letting them know what's already happening and being more open about that," Wisenor said.

Wisenor said he would like to work with Career Services more to make alumni aware of what services the school provides them.

"There are also some things we can do better with regards to career networking and regional opportunities," Wisenor said.

Gary Whisenand, director of Institutional Research, said the school regularly surveys students, staff and alumni to assure that their needs are being met.

"Whitworth continually wants to do better and serve its students and employees," Whisenand said.

Whisenand said Whitworth has surveyed alumni every three years since 1997.

Wisenor said he wanted to do a survey like this for quite a while.

"I've been very interested throughout my time here in finding out from alumni periodically what it is they want in terms of services and programming from the alumni office," Wisenor said. "I hadn't seen a format or a survey model that I liked well enough to pay what most of them wanted us to pay."

Wisenor said one reason he chose to work with PEG was because the firm provides a study that compares each school's results with the results of about 100 public and private universities across the country.

Of the 4,702 surveys delivered by e-mail, 1,541 Whitworth alumni responded, a little under a 33 percent response rate. This was the second largest response PEG had ever seen from an alumni survey, Wisenor said.

Shoss said the average response rate from a university's alumni is 18 to 25 percent.

One factor that may have contributed to Whitworth's large response rate is the nature of the university, Shoss said.

He said smaller schools as well as faith-based schools tend to have higher response rates.

PEG organized the survey results into an hour-and-a-half presentation that Shoss presented to Wisenor and other Whitworth faculty, including the alumni office staff and the institutional advancement committee, Wisenor said.

Representatives from PEG also helped Wisenor and other Whitworth faculty think creatively about the results and what they meant for Whitworth, offering suggestions about what the alumni office could do differently in the future.

Contact Natalie Johnson at natalie.johnson@whitworthian.com.

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