Notes From Student Forum

4/21/04, Barrett Ballroom, 12:00 - 1:30PM

The Accreditation Steering Committee and Campus Forum Committee appreciate the time each faculty member, staff member, student, and administrator gave to take part in this student forum. In particular we appreciiate the time and energy put into organizing the event by members of the student forum planning committee. Students facilitated conversations at small tables while staff, faculty and an administrator served as recorders.

Summary of Group Discussions & Complete Set of Notes from Small Groups

The task for this event was to engage students in a discussion around these questions:

• What were the biggest hurdles for you as a student when you first arrived at SJSU? How did you overcome them?
• What have been your 3 most positive experiences at SJSU?
• How has SJSU affected/changed you?
• Based on your experiences, what whould you encourage new students to do that you did not that will help them be successful.
• In what ways do you feel SJSU is doing a good job of preparing you for the future? In what areas does SJSU need to do a better job?
• What would you want to have come to mind when you tell folks you are a graduate of SJSU? What would you want SJSU's reputation to be?
• If you were the SJSU President and could change 3 things about SJSU what would they be?
• Imagine the university has weathered the current a budget crisis and over the next 5 years manages to enhance performance in nearly all areas of operation. How is SJSU different/better from the student perspective?
  

Summary of Group Discussions - Coming ASAP

Students shared their experiences at SJSU and envisioned how SJSU will be in five years. Specifically, they discussed the hurdles they faced as freshman at the University, the advice they would give to incoming freshmen, what they believe SJSU is and isn't doing well, and what strengths they would like associated with SJSU. Imagining they were in the president's position, they also give their input as to what three things they would change at SJSU. Following is a summary of the feedback from all five tables.

Hurdles faced by students

• - Registration and parking
• - Finding guidance and building supportive relationships with faculty and staff on campus

Positive experiences

• - Use of resources (library, tutoring, Career Center)
• - Opportunities to interact, network, and build relationships with other students, faculty, and staff
• - Diversity

Advice to new students

• - Focus and stay on track
• - Think critically
• - Be proactive. Find out about helpful resources
• - Get involved in student events and the community

What SJSU should be known for

• - Students are
  • - well-rounded
  • - professional
  • - able to do quality work
  • - able to find work
• - The University
  • - has a strong network amongst faculty, students, businesses, and the community
  • - has strong departments and programs
  • - is respected
  • - offers practical education, which can be applied outside of University setting
  • - sets high standards, and helps students to meet those standards
  • - has an environment conducive to learning

What SJSU is doing well

• - Developing well-rounded students
• - Encouraging diversity
• - Preparing students for work
• - Efforts to build character and maintain a good reputation for the University
• - Providing useful resources
• - through places like the Career Center and LARC
• - in capacities such as tutoring, counseling, networking

Areas of improvement

• - Communicating
• - Resources available to assist students
• - The process of enrollment and registration
• - Students events
• - Campus life
• - Change commuter school image by giving students reasons to stay on campus
• - More options for food, parking and transportation
• - Financial spending
• - Offer more courses, not less
• - Support extracurricular activities to promote student involvement
• - Allocate funds to strenghten all departments on campus
• - Education
• - Evaluaton of teaching methods
• - Set high standards

Notes from Table Recorders - Coming ASAP

Table 1

What were the biggest hurdles for you as a student when you first arrived at SJSU? How did you overcome them?

• Admissions/records - lost material
• Poor and untimely communication
• Not having orientation. Transfer students need orientation; could really use a to-do checklist - have available during welcome week
• CMS glitches
• Not being able to see what classes are being offered via peoplesoft - classes that are full don't show up. Students need to know what's being offered so that they can go to classes to try to add.
• Parking - need to make park & ride more widely known

Overcome:

• Used park & ride
• Used map to find where classes were and get oriented as best possible
• Campus could provide training for students in using peoplesoft

What have been your 3 most positive experiences at SJSU?

• Enrollment- very easy
• Excellent advising from faculty
• Faculty very helpful, welcoming, personable, approachable
• New library - like being able to borrow laptop
• Lots of great help for research
• Tutoring center
• Career center/fair
• Good cross-cultural experiences
• Health Center - good service and low cost

How has SJSU affected/changed you?

• Better communicator & leader
• Better at handling change
• Take things in stride better
• Not overwhelmed with academic part of life - better able to cope - better able to handle stress
• Better at time management
• More enjoyable to work in a group now; better at teamwork (appreciate the opportunity in classes to work in teams)

Based on your experiences, what whould you encourage new students to do that you did not that will help them be successful.

• Take WST right away (1st semester of transfer)
• Talk to advisors; listen to advisors; let them help you get a balanced workload
• Speak up and ask questions of teachers and when in groups
• Keep study group size to 3-4
• Join club in your major and outside your area of study
• Take things in stride - it can all get done
• Don't rush through; take the time you need to do well; keep workload managable
• Go to teachers' office hours
• Use tutoring center
• Visit music room

In what ways do you feel SJSU is doing a good job of preparing you for the future? In what areas does SJSU need to do a better job?

• Good at buidling communication skills
• Good at giving real life projects
• Good that faculty have life experiences to bring to their teaching
• Good that faculty keep current in their field
• More internships needed; faculty need to set up internships for students - make all arrangements

What would you want to have come to mind when you tell folks you are a graduate of SJSU? What would you want SJSU's reputation to be?

• Professional
• High Quality Education
• They will want to hire SJSU grads
• Produces graduates who know about the world, are disciplined/organized, adept, creative, can think critically
• What would come to mind are afew degree programs that are outstanding. Don't try to do everything well. Pick some and excel.
• Known for graduate who have a solid applied background in their area of study

If you were the SJSU President and could change 3 things about SJSU what would they be?

• Make SJSU more widely known
• Give visibility to degree progams
• Parking
• More teachers and classes so students can graduate
• Have standards, have entrance exams with cut scores. There are too many students just taking up space. Higher standards needed.
• Raise cut off point for disqualification so students have to be more engaged in learning to stay
• Charge more when students re-take classes; don't let students who are re-taking classes in untill all others who need the class are taken care of

Imagine the university has weathered the current a budget crisis and over the next 5 years manages to enhance performance in nearly all areas of operation. How is SJSU different/better from the student perspective?

• SJSU is top school among CSUs
• Students getting the classes they need
• Less stress
• More majors to choose from (or emphasis areas within a major)
• Reputation as a great school widely known
• Recruiters regularly visiting SJSU in search of employees
• Closer ties to businesses in the community

Table 2

1. What is SJSU doing well?

- Classes offered: classes in the college cover a lot of areas, not just the specific field you are concentrating on.
- Seems like there is a good effort to keep the SJSU name good
- Provides you with the tools you need to prepare you for work

What is SJSU not doing well?

- Information dissemination and communication across all levels
- Students don’t know about student events
- Wish there were more internships available
- Campus Life: non-existent for the most part
- Housing not accessible- too expensive, not seen as worth it/valuable
- Parking
- Need one organization to unite clubs/groups to do things together’
- “Commuter School” only because SJSU does not provide students anything to do on campus besides go to class
- Need to integrate commuters into campus life, NOT try to change it to a residential campus. Create balanced efforts between residents and commuter activities
- Need to look at other commuter schools for best practices- SJSU does not do enough benchmarking

2. What would you want to have come to mind when you tell folks you are a graduate of SJSU? What would you want SJSU to be known for?

- Well-rounded school
- Professional
- Classes are rigorous
- Practical education

3. If you were the SJSU President and could change 3 things about SJSU what would they be?

- Improve communication!
- Need a student advocacy group that is recognizable and accessible
- Overall quality of all aspects
- More support for sports/athletics
- Parking
- Quality of service: on-line registration is unreliable, academic advisors are uninformed and inconsistent
- Cut enrollment: don’t let everybody in who applies—lowers standards. Make admission requirements higher
- More classes and classrooms to alleviate overcrowded, large classes

4. Imagine the university has weathered the current budget crisis and over the next 5 years manages to enhance performance in nearly all areas of operation. How is SJSU different/better from your perspective?

- More people hanging out on campus, in quad.
- Less soliciting on campus (currently students avoid the union area so that they don’t get solicited)
- Give clubs and organizations the ability to put on and communicate their events.
- TV monitors around campus (on SJSU channel) that list campus events…in Market Café, union, etc.
- More going on around campus: concerts, volleyball, etc. “Give us a reason to stay here!”

5. What were the biggest hurdles coming here as a freshman? How did you overcome them?

- Not able to understand teachers with a thick accent
- Registration and parking. “who would ever think that you would go to a parking garage to register?!?”
- Not knowing your way around campus
- Acceptance letter does not tell you what to do next. The phone number that they give you is useless because you can’t get through
- Application/registration process is unorganized. Teachers confused, lost transcripts, transcripts take 6-8 weeks, lost student information, delayed process.
- Academic counselors are untrained, inconsistent or uninformed
- Counselors always in a hurry, don’t have time for the students, don’t care about the students
- One student always sees different counselors during their time here…there is no helpful staff on campus who knows them
- Spend an extra semester or year here because of incompetent/incorrect advising
- “Can’t be proud of a school that treats you like crap”
- Would only recommend this school to others only if the person had a high tolerance and patience

6. 3 most positive experiences at SJSU

- Every once in a while you get a really good teacher, this makes a difference…tired of the teachers just reading from the text or slides.
- Courses that provide practical tools to succeed
- Greek life and co-curricular organizations help you make friends

7. SKIPPED THIS QUESTION

8. Based on your experiences what would you encourage new students to do that you did not that will help them be successful?

- Question everything!
- Don’t quit, there is no hand holding so you will have to grow up quick
- Engage with the diverse communities on campus
- If you can afford it, live on campus

General Discussion

I would like to thank SJSU for…

· Keep the good teachers, take a good look at the “older” teachers- many appear to have given up on teaching and caring about students.
· Practical knowledge is helpful
· Business resources (?)

If you hear ONE THING from us today, it would be…

· Improve the registration process
· Communication!!! Communication!!! Communication!!!
· Employee training (Advisors, Student Services, Bursars, Admissions)
· Campus life is non-existent, nothing for students to do if they stay on campus
· There is no alumni networking for students to help them find a job
· Make admissions more rigorous, raise the standards
· More equal allocation of resources between colleges…Business school and Engineering get all of the perks and nice things. Not fair.

Suggestions made during the forum:

· SJSU TV channel listing campus events
· Figure out why the Student Life office is not being utilized
· Expand A.S., they currently serve in such a limited capacity. Students don’t really know what they do or how they can help, but sometimes they are the only ones who seem willing
· Business 10 was a “waste of time”, Science 2 was “useful, but a lot of work”
· GE courses are horrible- they are a waste of your time and they keep you here longer if you are undecided because you end up not having the necessary pre-requisites and you will probably receive poor advising.

Would you come to another event like this?

- Yes, if we had the time (usually don’t) and we don’t know about these events.
- Best way to communicate events is by making announcements in class, have A.S. get involved in supporting and communicating these events
- Flyers rarely catch anyone’s attention on campus

Table 3

WASC Student Forum Wednesday, April 21, 2004

1. What were the biggest hurdles for you as a student when you first arrived at SJSU? How did you overcome them?

· Choosing a major (didn’t have proper guidance). The academic counselors were not very helpful. However, the major department advisors were helpful.
-Need more academic guidance (clearer ideas of what classes to take).
· Transitional issues as a freshman, adjusting to the workload.
· Finding classes on campus.
· Sense of belonging (finding a niche)
· Finding faculty in a department.
· Location of the Engineering Building
· History (adverse with what classes to take as a foundation and guidance.
· Class size is too big (Business)
· Availability of classes-very hard to get the classes needed.
· Orientation was helpful
· Evaluating transcripts (More cleaner guidance of what to take as an
international student

2. What have been your 3 most positive experiences at SJSU?

· Friendly environment.
· Professors are available
· Classrooms are spacious
· Peoplesoft
· Counselors are nice.
· The new library
· MUSE program
· Orientation Program
· Business counselor was good.
· Student Organizations and Greek life/outside the classroom experience
· Career Center website (easy to find a job)
· Campus – is clean and manicured (doesn’t mind the “get off grass” signs)
· Leadership Today - MOSAIC

3. How has SJSU affected/changed you?

· More optimistic about finding a job (with the help of the Career Center)
· Dr. Fortunes class (organized her writing and taught the students how to write).
· Matured a lot since High School. Has taken control and takes more responsibility of her (the students’) life.
· Education and awareness of other people (more open to diversity).
· Developed leadership skills.
· Meet more friends and inspired her (through clubs)
· 100W class (thought her how to write)
· All the reading we had to do in History. Learning about all the different perspectives
· Academic workload (learned how to study)

4. Based on your experiences, what would you encourage new students to do that you did not that will help them be successful.

· Don’t save your readings until the end of the semester.
-Keep up with the academic work load (don’t fall behind).
· Focus
· Don’t procrastinate!
· If you have a disability, don’t be ashamed. Utilize the DRC-go get help.
· Live on campus and/or get involved with campus life.
· School is more than just your classes. Learn about other cultures and people.
· Approach your professors-don’t be intimidated.
· Know the University resources! And take advantage of them!
· Put your friends who aren’t in college aside.
- This will help with focus
- Support network (find your support and network

5. In what ways do you feel SJSU is doing a good job of preparing you for the future? In what areas does SJSU need to do a better job?

· Doing a Good job…
-Faculty are good (Business-Public Speaking Skills, Class Presentations)
-Alumni mentorship program
· Leadership Skills
· Disseminating information regarding activities on campus
· Helped him communicate with a diverse population (global community)
· Career Fair/Job Fair was excellent (and their workshops) Repeat several times!!!
· Improvements….
-Quality of food on campus
-Parking (need more spaces!)

6. What would you want to have come to mind when you tell folks you are a graduate of SJSU? What would you want SJSU’s reputation to be?

· University couscous
· Toughen the standards to get in.
· More respect
· Gives us a good education (Both academic and extracurricular
· Academically strong
· Not very distinguishable (i.e. Berkley, Stanford)
· Have stricter admission
· State schools are just as good as UC.
· Good School
· Excellent Business program
· Well-rounded (Business program-respectful)
· Networking Opportunity

7. If you were the SJSU President and could change 3 things about SJSU what would they be?

· Break the commuter image
· Better communication/dissemination of flyers of events on campus.
· Disabled students transportation. Should offer on campus transportation.
· Plagiarism (reduce it)
· Tougher admission requirements
· More class options
· Class size
· Parking! (fees are too high)
· Spartan Daily (too negative)
· Clean Bathrooms better
· More Public Buses
· Smoking on Campus
· Create a better sense of community – more money (student clubs/org)
· More collaborative with student body and community

8. Imagine the university has weathered the current budget crisis and over the next 5 years manages to enhance performance in nearly all areas of operation. How is SJSU different/better from the student perspective?

Table 4

1. In what ways do you feel SJSU is doing a good job of preparing you for the future? In what areas does SJSU need to do a better job?

*The opportunities available on/off-campus are not known to the general student population. The university does a good job “giving what we need,” but not promoting them.
*Better Counselors specific to the majors.
*Smaller class sections offered—not enough available—the university needs to do a better job providing more classes.

2. What would you want to have come to mind when you tell folks you are a graduate of SJSU? What would you want SJSU’s reputation to be?

The best “CSU” campus. Largest output of Silicon Valley employees. Campus environment—SJSU is underrated—known for particular individual departments (i.e., degree specific)—known for diversity on-campus. We live in the best state/area (in the world). Promotion. Promote. We need to “have a reputation-in general.” The word is not out there that provides some type of positive outlook.

3. If you were the SJSU President and could change 3 things about SJSU what would they be?

*Provide more reasons to be here at SJSU
*Publicize and promote SJSU-develop a reputation
*Better sports program

*More events on-campus (social, forums)
*Give more information to students
*Commuter campus-no sense of community

*More social events, guest speakers
*Campus pride (i.e., alumni, athletics, events, faculty, staff “buy into” the university)
*Campus beautification. Safer though some lights are out.

4. Imagine the university has weathered the current budget crisis and over the next 5 years manages to enhance performance in nearly all areas of operation. How is SJSU different/better from the student perspective?

Different: All new buildings, students graduate in a timely fashion, questions 1 – 3 addressed.

Better: Questions 1 – 3 completed.

5. What were the biggest hurdles for you as a student when you first arrived at SJSU? How did you overcome them?
Hurdles:

*Transition from high school to college, “on your own.”
*Not knowing opportunities available on and off-campus
*NSO not effective
*Don’t know which step to take (registering for classes—really overwhelming)
*Finding classes/classrooms—provide more maps at various locations on/off-campus

How we overcame the hurdles:

*NSO better today than before
*Went to NSO
*Got involved with the Campus Life Office
*Older students actually help

6. What have been your 3 most positive experiences at SJSU?

*Got involved on-campus (better sense of belonging)
*Greek Life
*Teaching, Staff

*Living in the dorms, being around people your own age—doing what I am doing
*Supportive “staff” and mentors—especially when my parents aren’t here.
*Food

*Football/Homecoming was fun
*Successful “big events” provide students an opportunity to see other students around, do more on-campus

7. How has SJSU affected/changed you?

Affected: More assertive, intelligent to what is going on around me. Positive outlook on and off-campus.

Changed: Better prepared for a professional career: Knowledge, self-esteem to get a job and move on into the real world. Better communicated, better leader exposed to different cultures/diversity. We share similar ideas, relate to others that are of the same culture (not like in high school).

8. Based on your experiences, what would you encourage new students to do that you did not that will help them be successful.

*Seek out your opportunities and get involved on-campus
*Do something on-campus and YOU WILL stay
*NSO-mentoring
*Seek out your academic resources
*Learn how to manage your time, “handle” your workload, study skills
*Be open-minded and take risks
*Do your homework

Table 5

1. What were the biggest hurdles for you as a student when you first arrived at SJSU? How did you overcome them?

- The WST, they lost the student’s essay and he had to re- take it
- The professor scared her in her 1st class - said it is not like Jr. College and would be very hard… did not build up her self confidence or offer support
- School culture made her nervous, as an international student. She felt better after she passed the 1st class.
- It is hard to register. By the time it was her turn, all the classes she wanted were full.
- Parking, always hard, even in the afternoon it is hard to find anything.
- NO advising when he first registered. Friends told him when program requirements were changed for major instead of getting a letter from his department.
- MY SJSU is frustrating. UC Davis was better. There are too many glitches in our system. “ I felt like a guinea pig.”
- Did not give step-by-step instruction on how to use MySJSU.
- Can’t find my classes. My SJSU requires students to know too much information.
- The online catalog is not clear.
- The hard copy of the class schedule is out of date. Too many blank spaces.
- Not happy that the campus is not sending information in print. They should at least send postcards or emails on when to look the information up.
- It took one student 4-5 hours to register for summer classes.
- The phone help should be 24 hours instead of a limited amount of hours.
- The school needs to tell students what to do by sending email or another form of communication. “It sometimes feels like we are getting the “cold shoulder”
- Information dissemination is awful.
- The summer catalog was up too late and it did not designate which session was posted, so it was easy to mistake it for something else.
- Student Services Center could be more helpful. “The staff would not write me a note to indicate they received my transcript.”
- The bookstore should buy books back for a higher price at the end of the semester, or create something like an E-bay website so we can do it ourselves.

2. What have been your 3 most positive experiences at SJSU?

- English and tutoring for ESL. (Student Services Center)
- Better teachers here than UC. They care and know their specialty. The research is very professional and knowledgeable.
- Group meetings and work groups in class make it easier to learn.
- The UC Davis transfer student- like the practical and grounded information rather than the philosophical theory.
- Very supportive environment. (Staff.)
- “Diversity makes me feel welcomed, and I see people like myself.”

3. How has SJSU changed you?

- I am more mature
- In class, you get to be part of a team during group projects. In the beginning, I was not used to working with other people, so it was a good experience related to responsibility.
- More prepared- I finish my work one or two days ahead of the deadline.
- I learned better time management and organization.
- I am a better planner
- More serious about my classes because I can see it affects my career. I am more competitive.
- I sleep a lot less.
- I am more confident because my major requires a lot of presentations in front of the group.
- Sometimes I cut classes more because the syllabus tells me what is going on in class so I don’t feel like I need to be there.

4. Based on your experiences, what would you encourage new students to do that you did not that will help them be successful?

- See counselors before registering for classes.
- Check with career center first to see if you will like your major, because it could help in reducing the number of major changes.
- Check out the website “ratemyprofessor.com”
- Take the 100W as soon as possible, because it is hard to get in to.
- Register for classes and pay on time.
- Check the campus web page often and all campus email that applies to you.

5. In what ways do you feel SJSU is doing a good job of preparing you for the future? In what areas does SJSU need to do a better job?

- The printed guidelines for classes needed to graduate
- Outside activities and clubs help networking
- Counselors are helpful to pick out classes. They do a good job but they do not have access to my transcripts. (Major Advisor)
- Tutoring in English
- Business school advising very helpful
- Recommendation: GE Advisor needs to call students to come in for advising. Takes 3-4 wks to see an advisor, and so there needs to be more advisors.

Note: One out of 6 students saw a GE advisor.

6. What would you want to have come to mind when you tell folks you are a graduate of SJSU? What would you want SJSU’s reputation to be?

- Want outsiders to think that SJSU has a higher standard than it really does.
- It would be nice if outsiders could think that it is hard to get a degree at SJSU, it is an elite degree, and not that easy to receive.
- School is respected for its academics. Students are ready and can handle real work.
- Would want the accomplishments to feel more rewarding and prestigious.
- Comment: It seems like anyone can get into this school. This school should have higher standards for entrance. Anyone can get a 2.0.

7. If you were the SJSU president and could change 3 things about SJSU, what would they be?

- I would spend more money on the web pages, and explain things more clearly.
- It took several days of calling for someone to finally call back and afterwards, I could not register for classes on time. My student ID did not work as a password. The President needs to fix customer service.
- Don’t think the internet will solve everything. Should have sent more mailings to students.
- Standardized user ID’s and Passwords. I have 3 sets of SJSU ID numbers and passwords. This makes students mad and confused.
- The school should stop assuming that we know all of the instructions or that we read minds.
- This school needs more professors, and classes.
- They really need to fix parking, and build more structures.
- Evaluate the professor evaluations which students fill out at the end of the semester, and the to approach the teachers who have bad evaluations. It feels as if our evaluations do not count and bad professors get to stay here as long as they live.
- The parking permits are too expensive. Lower the price.
- There should be more campus activities, and better publicity. It is hard to find about campus events. The events should be made more prominent, like in the Spartan Daily.
- The library hours should be longer. There should also be a portion of the library open 24 hours a day. At the least, there should be midnight hours, or 2 am hours.
- Get rid of the vagrants on campus, and the solicitors. Make this more of a college environment.
- Upgrade toilet paper in the restrooms, it is too cheap and flimsy.
- Make the graduation ceremony more formal. It is too wild and not collegiate.
- Take the money used for athletic programs and put it into academics. It currently does not benefit the majority of students.
- Make students feel more a part of the school.
- Give students timely information
- Engineering building is old and outdated…fix it.

8. Imagine the University has weathered the current budget crisis and over the next 5 years manages to enhance performance in nearly all areas of operation. How is SJSU different/better from the student perspective?

- We will not have parking problems
- The web site will work better – be easy to use
- More students will want to come here
- School will gain more respect
- There will be more classes
- Smaller classes and more interaction
- Smaller classes lead to students knowing more about the subject
- Will have more areas for students to hang out and relax, the student union needs to be remodeled.
- Students will have a higher degree of satisfaction.