Lincoln University studies results of analytics firm research

A view of Lincoln University's campus is seen here from the dome of the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City.
A view of Lincoln University's campus is seen here from the dome of the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City.

Lincoln University recently received findings from two reports by an outside research firm, leading to some introspection on how the university conducts customer service, campus safety and academic programming.

LU hired Hanover Research, a custom market research and analytics firm, to conduct three studies last year.

The first report consists of in-depth interviews with students who have withdrawn from undergraduate programs at LU. The second report is a geographic assessment scan of undergraduate programs in Missouri. And the third report is a first-year student survey not yet complete.

Hanover Research representatives Robbie Rhinesmith and Sylvia Guo presented findings of the first two reports to the LU Board of Curators Academic/Student Affairs Committee and university administrators Thursday.

Lincoln hired Hanover in November 2020 at a total cost of $135,000 over three years, according to the contract. As of July 1, LU had paid Hanover $45,000.

"Our contract is really to identify opportunities for enrollment growth, to identify areas for academic program development," Rhinesmith said.

Rhinesmith, the relationship director for Hanover's partnership with LU, said there has been a focus on retention and enrollment since the beginning of the process.

Interviews with dropped students

Beginning with the interviews with dropped students, Guo, the content and research director for Hanover's partnership with LU, outlined three objectives for the study: determine factors for why students leave LU, investigate how much academic or financial factors were to blame, and identify changes LU could make to retain students.

Guo said Hanover sent thousands of emails to former students' LU and personal email accounts but received only 15 responses, which was then reduced more as five of the participants weren't present for video call interviews.

Ten in-depth interviews of students who dropped between 2017-20 were conducted.

LU Curators Don Cook and Frank Logan, as well as Interim President John Moseley, expressed concern with the limited number of students interviewed.

"I have concerns as a researcher with the number of individuals that were identified," Moseley said. "I don't know that 10 individuals can give you a true perspective on the reasons - certainly for those individuals those were specific reasons for those individuals - but to use only 10 students to basically create a baseline for what the university needs to address, I think that there would need to be more people involved in that study."

Participants were offered a $30 incentive, but Guo said that wasn't effective.

She said the timeline and nature of the group of students they were interested in talking to made recruitment of participants difficult.

"Dropped students do not have an obligation to - or any incentive or motivation to - do a study by a previous institution," Guo told the committee.

Moseley said it would be troubling to let 10 interviews speak for the larger group of students who have left LU.

According to the report, students initially enrolled at LU because of its welcoming, tight-knit community, designation as a historically Black university, proximity to home and affordability.

The same report indicates at least three of the 10 students left LU because they felt unsafe on campus, particularly after action wasn't taken on reported sexual harassment, bullying and theft incidents.

"There were a couple of sexual harassment incidents (involving me), and I told my RA, but nothing was done about it," one of the interviewed students reported. "So, once I had told my mom, she immediately pulled me out. I liked everything (at LU) except the not being responsive to my incidents."

Additional reasons the interviewed students cited for leaving included an unsupportive financial aid office and the university being unresponsive to individual testing or residence hall needs.

The report recommends LU respond to safety concerns, work with students on financial issues and counseling services, improve academic advising and special-needs accommodation, increase faculty commitment to teaching, promote the student success center and maintain a supportive culture.

"If I were to boil this down into a really, really small description of what we need to do, I would say campus security and customer service," Curator Terry Rackers said.

Moseley said LU already identified customer service as an area to improve upon based on surveys in 2019 and earlier this year.

The partnership with Hanover was initiated before Moseley became interim president, and he said he doesn't know why this direction was taken.

"We're at a point now where we just want to make sure that the studies that we are conducting need to be working for the university and can be things that we can take and learn from to map out a plan to move forward," Moseley said.

He said LU will need to be more specific in future requests to guarantee information or findings that can be used in decision-making.

Moseley said the university could use the information to determine if the issues identified are consistent among the student body.

Guo said results of the interviews shouldn't be generalized for the entire student body, but major themes could be noteworthy. She said the exploratory results of the interviews could be used to form a survey and collect perspectives from the larger campus community.

Rhinesmith said the upcoming study of first-time students will be used to determine if the conclusions gathered from the interviews speak generally to the entire university.

Geographic assessment scan

The second Hanover study was a geographic scan of undergraduate programs in Missouri and how they interact with demographic trends, labor market demands and the state's competitive landscape.

Hanover researchers looked at overarching demographic, employment and market trends for the state, as well as what the top growth and most popular four-year degree programs are in Missouri, among other metrics.

The report indicates health care and social assistance has the highest proportion of employees in the state, with retail trade and manufacturing in second and third. Average annual occupation gaps show nurses, general and operational managers, and software developers, analysts and testers as the jobs most likely to need employees to fill vacancies.

LU received $4 million in additional state funding this year to expand its nursing program facilities.

"I do think the labor market survey helps us understand where we can target more of our efforts to make sure that we are meeting the needs of students and the labor market for the state of Missouri," Logan said. "Although I am concerned about some of the programs listed, do they fit into the mission of Lincoln University by trying to offer them, or would we be augmenting that mission?"

The report states LU offers eight of the top 10 degrees most in demand for students, except health science and general studies. The study also outlines top competitors around the state in the fastest growing bachelor's programs.

Hanover recommended LU strengthen its business and computer science programs with the addition of specializations, courses and certifications aligned with research and analytics within occupations in demand. LU should also explore graduate programs in health care fields to meet future labor market needs, the report states.

The research firm also advised the university to expand marketing for bachelor's programs in nursing, business, accounting, computer science and information systems, as well as emphasize financial aid and affordability.

Moseley said the geographic scan provides the university a baseline for understanding what is available for graduates upon entry into the workforce and can be used to develop academic programs that meet the needs of the state and nation.

He said the report will be used to assess specific academic programs to determine if current offerings satisfy student and labor market needs. Academic programs will be reviewed one at a time for six weeks each.

Administration will also explore what additional academic opportunities - such as certificate programs and concentrations - could look like, he said.

"Lincoln's academic offerings fit into many of these, and we just want to make sure we're specific in offering degrees students can use upon graduation," Moseley said.

Despite receiving some findings the university didn't want to hear, Moseley said he believes the LU faculty, staff and administration are up to the challenge of finding solutions.

"Every time there's a concern, you want to look into it to see if there's something that we're failing to do or that maybe we could do better, and I really think that's where we are at this point," Moseley said. "We're looking at everything we do and trying to figure out how to make it better across every area on our campus."