The Market Position of a University Relative to an Ideal : A Study of Constituent and Faculty Perceptions

Problem. Specialists in educational trends forecast declining enrollments for higher education until at least theend of the twentieth century. Because of these forecasts many educators have turned to marketing in aneffort to find assistance in meeting challenges raised by the prospect of declining enrollments. It is commonly accepted that the success of an institution is determined ultimately by how well it satisfies theneeds and expectations of its constituents. In the area of identifying client expectations and needs marketing may well offer its greatest assistance to higher education. It was the purpose of this study todetermine if there was any significant difference between the market position of the undergraduate schools of Andrews University and that of an ideal college/university as perceived by constituents and faculty of the university. Method. The census of four selected populations were considered as subjects for the study. These were (1) seniors in academies operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Lake Union Conference scheduled to graduate in the Spring of 1981, (2) parents of these seniors, (3) faculty members of the academies, and (4) faculty members of Andrews University. Each subject was asked to complete one of two quesionnaires developed for the study. Half of the subjects were randomly chosen to receive questionnaires for an ideal college/university and half of the subjects were randomly chosen to receive questionnaires concerning Andrews University. Seventy-three percent of the subjects completed and returned questionnaires usable for the data analysis. Two statistical methods were used in analyzing the data. The hypotheses were tested by multivariant analysis of variance followed by discriminant analysis. Findings. All null hypotheses were rejected indicating that significant differences were perceived between the ideal college/university and Andrews University. In discriminating between Andrews University and the ideal college/university, twenty-one of the thirty variables tested played a significant part for one or more of the populations. Of the four populations and two combined population groups (six total groups) three variables played a significant part for five of the groups, three variables for four of the groups, six variables for two of the groups, and nine variables played a significant part for one group. Conclusions. The findings suggest that all populations under study perceived Andrews University to be significantly different from the ideal college/university on some of the thirty variables. The combined populations particularly rated Andrews University relatively lower than the ideal on variables concerning campus cafeteria food, trust relationship between faculty and students, careful cost control by the University, on-campus work opportunities for students, and teachers modeling Christian lifestyle. The total population rated Andrews University relatively higher than the ideal on variables concerning rules being consistent with Christian philosophy and student atonomy