OATdb Archive

2009 - 2010

Lowman Student Center, Director

Goal
Facilities And Services
Provide high quality facilities and services in support of the university's mission.

Objective
Quality Operations
Provide guests with high quality facilities, equipment and services.

Indicator
Quality Operations
Using an assessment survey, measure the quality of the operations for service and the facility. The service portion of the survey is broken into 3 areas: communication, efficiency, and courtesy. Facility issues surveyed were quality of tables, chairs, equipment and special needs. Each of the areas allowed the responder to select a rating of excellent, good, fair, or poor. The survey provided space for additional comments from the responder. A copy of the survey is attached.

Criterion
Quality Operations
Maintain a 90% rating of good or outstanding in the quality assessment survey

Finding
Quality Findings
The transition from paper survey to electronic survey has been helpful.  While the number of survey responses decreased, the responses have been more open and frank.  As of July 2010 over 97% of the responses were either good or excellent.  We will finalize our findings at the end of the fiscal year.  I expect the results will not change significantly since there is less use during the summer sessions.

Action
Quality Operations
Most of the feedback we receive is positive.  The one trend we are focusing on this year is getting the rooms opened on time.  We have developed a training checklist for our office student employee who opens doors during the day.  We have also installed sensors in every conference room so that lighting can be turned on before the meetings.  If the meeting ends early the sensors will automatically turn off the lights after a prescribed time. 

Goal
Programs And Events
Encourage student participation in programs and events held in the student center.

Objective
Program/Event
Provide university community with programs and increase participation in line with university growth.

Indicator
Program Participation
The programs sponsored by the LSC will increase student participation by a factor equal to the university growth.

Criterion
Event participation
The total participation in the programs sponsored by the LSC will increase by 3%.

Finding
Event Participation
This criterion was developed based on projected growth for the 2009-2010 school year.  The actual growth for SHSU this year was around 1%.  The event participation is down by 42% from the previous year. 

Action
Program Participation
The Kat Klub manager is the primary staff member responsible for LSC programming.  When he retired in October, the programming became an additional duty of the Assistant Director.  Advertising and promotion fell off, and as a result, the attendance dropped significantly. A replacement was hired and in place in March 2010.  He has started a comprehensive plan to assess, upgrade and revitalize the LSC programming in the Kat Klub. The chart in the findings section shows a marked increase in attendance after the new manager joined the staff.  Attached are the survey and an example of new advertising.


Update to previous cycle's plan for continuous improvement

Plan for continuous improvement During FY 2010 the LSC used Student Voice as the survey medium to assess our customer satisfaction.  The staff established a process to ensure each group had the opportunity to complete a survey.  This resulted in a timely feedback via our satisfaction survey.  Our goal is to receive at least 90% of the survey marks in the excellent or good categories.  We review the feedback responses to see what we can do to improve our facility, equipment, procedures or processes. 
As of July 13, 2010 there were 1022 responses across the complete survey; 841 excellent (84%), 137 good (13.5%), 7 fair (2%) and 3 poor (0.5%).  The survey questions marked excellent or good totaled 999 or 97.74%.  Last year our excellent/good rating was 97.02% so we improved slightly over last year.  Based on feed back from the surveys we have taken some steps to improve the LSC. 
1.  We have purchased and are in the process of upgrading our reservation system (EMS) to a fully web based real time reservation system.  This will allow customers to view and request rooms in real time.  This should also assist our staff's workload and allow for more personal assistance with reservations needing the face to face interaction.
2.  We have purchased new tables and chairs for the student groups to check out for their programs.  The existing tables were worn out and getting hard to use.  The new equipment is lighter and better suited for outdoor events.
3.  We purchased additional data projectors to ensure we could provide that service to all 15 conference rooms at the same time.
4.  We continue to conduct student training with emphasis on customer service.
5.  Our greatest challenge is our limited space.  The building is sized for a student population of about 12,500 and we currently have about 17,000 students in the fall semester.  This summer we addressed the Student Government Association and look forward to their support in expanding our current facility.
In our programming area we conducted an assessment survey where 197 students gave their input on how we could upgrade our Kat Klub game room and see what kind of programs they would like to see in the game room.
1.  As a result we have installed two Wii gaming systems and have purchased 8 additional gaming systems for the Kat Klub.
2.  We have painted the entire room to brighten the space and provide a more inviting environment.
3.  We contracted with a game room design company, Steel Surf, and have received their input on how to better facilitate traffic flow and options for the facility layout.
4.  We have removed the outdated arcade games and opened space for future video game areas.
5.  While making the changes we have been conscious about keeping the eating and television areas that were noted on the survey.
6.  We look for new programming ideas and this summer we featured the World Cup soccer tournament.  We invited all students, but targeted the international student community.  They responded and we had international students in the game room every day when a soccer game was on television.
We will continue to use Student Voice and other forms of feedback to improve our services to the university community and other guests.