Milligan provides quality education for region

  Milligan College doesn't just talk about quality education. The Christian liberal arts college routinely looks to benchmark surveys and outside sources to confirm that they are truly delivering a quality education.
  One benchmark that is growing in popularity is the National Survey of Student Engagement. It's a way to compare educational practices at different schools by using the same "measuring stick," explained Mark Matson, Ph.D., vice president for academic affairs and dean at Milligan College.
  NSSE (pronounced "nessie" by the higher ed world) attempts to go beyond college rankings by asking students about their level of engagement during their first year and senior year in college. Students are asked a variety of questions developed to measure their experiences while attending the institution.
  "The research is unequivocal: students who are actively involved in both academic and out-of-class activities gain more from the college experience than those who are not as involved," claim renowned higher education researchers Ernest Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini. Their book, "How College Affects Students," synthesized 20 years of empirical research and over 2,600 studies to identify how students change and benefit as a consequence of attending college.
  Coordinated by Indiana University at Bloomington and co-sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Pew Forum on Undergraduate Education, NSSE polled over 560,000 students at 473 colleges nationwide in 2004.
  Milligan's overall performance in areas of student engagement, as measured by NSSE, shows that Milligan students are more engaged and have more evidence of student-faculty interaction than at most colleges in the U.S.
  "Quality is not just something we talk about. Our students and our institution ranked quite well on the benchmarks of effective educational practice -- those things that are considered to be the desired outcomes of a college experience," said Matson, who previously served as the assistant director of administration at Duke University's Sanford Institute of Public Policy.
  The first benchmark, explained Matson, is academic challenge. This is measured by questions relating to a broad general education, analytical thinking, and the extent that the college experience has helped students acquire job or work-related skills.
  "Student learning and collegiate quality is largely determined by the degree to which the institution emphasizes the importance of academic effort and sets high expectations for student performance," said Matson.
  The second benchmark is active and collaborative learning. "Students learn more and are better prepared for life after college when they are actively involved in their education and collaborate with others in solving problems or mastering difficult material," said Matson.
  The third NSSE benchmark, student-faculty interaction, is where Milligan really excels, said Matson.
  "Our students learn firsthand how to solve practical problems and think through issues because they are working very closely with their professors, both inside and outside the classroom," he said. "That's what you get on a small college campus that focuses heavily on the teaching and mentoring relationship between faculty and students. It makes a difference."
  Learning outside the classroom, as measured by the fourth benchmark, enriching educational experiences, is also important because different experiences teach students valuable things about themselves and others. Milligan students are actively involved in internships, community service, and a liberal arts curriculum that encourages the integration of subjects.
  Having good faculty and a good curriculum, however, is meaningless unless you have a supportive campus environment, said Matson. This is the fifth and final benchmark which NSSE measures and is another area in which Milligan excels far and above national norms.
  "Students need a campus environment that provides them the support they need to succeed academically, to cope with non-academic responsibilities, and to thrive socially," explained Matson. "As a Christian college, and because of our commitment to the liberal arts, Milligan has been committed to educating the entire person since our inception. We place a tremendous amount of focus and resources on providing a supportive campus environment for our students. And it is well worth it."
  For more information or detailed results of Milligan's NSSE survey, visit www.milligan.edu/academic/nsse.