Vision and Values Survey

Analysis

Friendly, fun, home, comfortable, quiet, welcoming, pretty.

Those descriptors and many more were among the 9,879 discrete comments that 585 students, faculty, staff and community members provided in the UW-River Falls vision and values survey.

On Tuesday some 150 persons participated in a Town Hall meeting where that information was summarized and shared.

A power point presentation on the data will soon be on line. Look for it at http://www.uwrf.edu/vision/.

Those surveyed were asked to describe our campus, offer what its core values should be in the 21st Century, describe their vision for the institution, offer an opinion on its strengths, suggest its future defining characteristics, offer what changes will be needed to accomplish those characteristics, and weigh in on how Chancellor Don Betz should be spending his time.

Glowing and hopeful comments were offered by many of the respondents. Among them was a response to the core values question that summarized, "UW-RF should be an ethical, knowledgeable, congenial, affordable educational institution that operates with the greatest integrity to meet the educational needs of its students."

A student offered this commentary about institutional strengths:  "I have had 16 professors since I've been enrolled as a student here. These instructors have all been exceptional in my opinion. Each one of them has been inspiring, helpful, and thought provoking....If that is not what is most important in education, I don't know what else it could be."

The survey information will next be used as UW-RF moves forward in a strategic planning process that Chancellor Betz pledges will be of short duration to insure timely implementation with specific action steps to realize the vision outlined in the survey. The comments also will drive institutional vision and mission statements reviews.