Have you ever had one of those moments where you put a lot of time into something only to discover that you really just need to start over?  Well, that has been my experience this week in trying to write about some data that we collected from our freshmen last spring regarding the kind of perceptions that are often attributed to microaggressions. So instead of dumping a post on you that isn’t up to snuff (what does that phrase mean, anyway?), I’m going to take it back to the drawing board and post it next week.

In the mean time (cue the Jeopardy music), since many of you are working through course master planning for next year, here is a set of data points that ought to make you smile.

One of the more practical predictors of our seniors’ sense that they would choose Augustana again is the degree to which they found that the courses they needed to take were available in the order in which they needed to take them. Even though there might be a myriad of paths to complete one’s degree, it’s not too difficult to tell the difference between a student who can talk through how their classes fit together and a student who seems to have scrambled through their four years with little more than a grab bag of credits to show for it.

Over the last three years, our seniors’ average response to this item has gone from a 3.06 in 2014 to a 3.50 in 2016. I suspect that this improvement can be credited to improved course planning as well as improved advising. I don’t have a good sense of how that balance breaks down, but I think anyone who’s played a role in either aspect of helping students move through their four years in a more deliberate way deserves a small pat on the back.

So if you are slogging through course master planning ’til late at night and you wonder if it’s worth it . . . it might just be. And if you find yourself wondering if all the time you spend advising students is worth it . . . it might just be.

Make it a good day,

Mark