Feminist Scholarship Review

Published from 1991 through 2007 at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, the Feminist Scholarship Review is a literary journal that describes women\u27s experiences around the world. FSR began as a review of feminist scholarly material, but evolved into a journal for poetry and short storie

Feminist Scholarship Review

Published from 1991 through 2007 at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, the Feminist Scholarship Review is a literary journal that describes women\u27s experiences around the world. FSR began as a review of feminist scholarly material, but evolved into a journal for poetry and short storie

Feminist Scholarship Review

Published from 1991 through 2007 at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, the Feminist Scholarship Review is a literary journal that describes women\u27s experiences around the world. FSR began as a review of feminist scholarly material, but evolved into a journal for poetry and short storie

Feminist Scholarship Review

Published from 1991 through 2007 at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, the Feminist Scholarship Review is a literary journal that describes women\u27s experiences around the world. FSR began as a review of feminist scholarly material, but evolved into a journal for poetry and short storie

Feminist Scholarship Review

Published from 1991 through 2007 at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, the Feminist Scholarship Review is a literary journal that describes women\u27s experiences around the world. FSR began as a review of feminist scholarly material, but evolved into a journal for poetry and short storie

Western Alumni, Class of 2003 - Spring 2004 Survey Findings

During Spring Quarter of 2004, a random sample of recent graduates of Western Washington University were mailed a survey asking about their current work and educational pursuits, expectations, and their experiences at Western. The survey replicated items from previous surveys conducted on a biennial basis. This report provides the distribution of their responses on each of the survey items. In all, 527 alumni responded to the survey out of 1340 for a 39% response rate. (Respondents were sent a pre-survey notification letter, followed by the survey, a reminder and a second survey if they’d not yet responded.) Respondents tended to have earned better grades at WWU (3.24 vs. 3.12 for non-responders), be Caucasian (82% versus 72% of non-responders) and be female (66% vs. 50% of non-responders)

Giving Up on a Course: An Analysis of Course Dropping Behaviors Among Community College Students

Excessive course dropping is costly to students and institutions. Using longitudinal transcript data, this study investigated course withdrawal patterns among 5900 students at a large, racially/ethnically diverse community college district in Texas. Two-thirds of the students dropped at least one course, and 13.5% of the total course enrollments resulted in withdrawal. Course withdrawal rates were significantly higher among students who were: male, African American, age 20–24, GED holders, academically underprepared, enrolled part-time, and had a cumulative college GPA of less than 2.0. Science, mathematics, and writing courses had high drop rates, as did Second Start and fully online courses. Dropping 20% or more of attempted courses was associated with 44% lower odds of a successful enrollment outcome. We hypothesize that community college students are rational, act in their own self-interest, and perform a cost–benefit analysis with the knowledge they possess when deciding whether to drop a particular course. However, students often overuse or misuse the course withdrawal function. Despite acting in self-interest at the moment, the decision to drop a course is often not in students’ long-term best interest, and excessive course dropping can resemble a ‘cooling out’ mechanism by which students’ reduce their aspirations toward degree completion. Recognizing community college structures and rules (e.g., withdrawal procedures, tuition refund policy) influence course dropping decisions, we describe academic policies and classroom practices that can help reduce course withdrawals. We believe that reducing course attrition is a foundational, yet often overlooked, mechanism for reducing community college attrition

Western Educational Longitudinal Study: Baseline of Freshmen entering Fall, 2003

Baseline report with data from WWU\u27s first WELS survey on first-time, in-coming freshmen. Includes frequencies, figures, WELS goals and objectives, survey administration procedures, data quality, and analysis of qualitative findings from WELS freshmen focus group

Student Demand for Extended Library Hours

The goal of this brief issue of Focus is.to report our findings concerning the relative student demand for various possible extensions of library hours. Western\u27s libraries have received requests and suggestions concerning the extension of library hours. The need to balance service to Western students against the cost of extending Wilson Library\u27s operating hours called for additional information. At the request of the Acting Director of Libraries, Marian Alexander, the Office of Institutional Assessment and Testing and the Office of Survey Research undertook a brief survey to examine the likely value to students of various possible additions to library hours. More precisely, a special set of items was in our most recent survey (see Methods below) That survey did not provide a representative sample of Western students and should not, therefore, be taken as a completely accurate gauge of demand for different additions to library hours. However, the survey is adequate to give a useful approximation of the student body\u27s relative valuation of the alternative library hour expansions put forth in the survey

Western Washington University Library Survey Series, Fall 1996-97: Faculty and Staff and Administration

INTRODUCTION Section One: Faculty At the request of the new University Librarian, Western\u27s Office of Survey Research (OSR) and Office of Institutional Assessment and Testing (OiART) worked with the library\u27s faculty and staff to conduct a series of surveys focusing on library resources and services. Drafts of this report were reviewed by library personnel and their comments and insights were extremely valuable. These surveys were intended to provide a base of information to help guide an in-depth assessment and planning effort aimed at improving Western\u27s library. Indeed, Western Washington University Libraries: Organizational Directions and Major Strategies: I998- 2003 was published December 31, I 997, a strategic plan which utilized, among other sources of information, the findings found in this report. The library\u27s strategic plan is available in hard copy through their main administrative offices, and on-line via the Western Libraries home page(http://lis.wwu.edu/screens/ mainmenu.html). During Fall quarter, surveys were conducted of faculty, administration/staff, returning under¬ graduates with more than 120 credits, returning graduate students, newly entering undergraduate and graduate students, the library faculty and staff, and community library users. Section One of this first technical report presents the findings of one of these surveys: the survey of Western Faculty members. Faculty completed an extensive survey, with questions concerning their own use and evaluation of library holdings, facilities and services, perceptions of the library\u27s ability to serve student needs, recommendations for changes to the library, and recommendations regarding a variety of library policy questions. This report summarizes basic findings from the faculty survey. Two notes of mention are: Although Western\u27s library system includes some satellite holdings, the largest being the music library, the great majority of use is of Wilson Library. For convenience of expression, this report adopts the convention of referring to the Western library while recognizing the existence of plural holdings. Two: This report is intended to provide information as background to strategic planning efforts by the library staff, faculty, and administration of Western. This creates a natural division of labor between this report and the planning bodies that will use it. This report provides concrete empirical observations with little comment, and planning bodies will interpret these and other observations within the WWU context, as a basis for planning recommendations. With this in mid, this report is written with a minimum of interpretation or discussion