Overall, the Office of Advocacy and Institutional Relations (AIR) was pleased with the survey results generated from responses from 47 individuals at the campuses and the Chancellor’s Office. The satisfied and very satisfied responses constituted an average of 61% for the summary. Perhaps more importantly, there were no “very dissatisfied” responses, and the “dissatisfied” average was only 4%, with most of those responses in one specific area. There also were many valuable responses to the open-ended questions, which provided thoughtful and helpful feedback.
We are pleased to see that our efforts at improvement since the last external survey have had some results. Specifically, we have re-established a regular cycle for the Legislative Report, and reformatted it to be more contemporary—allowing readers to choose how much information they need on a specific topic. We have begun posting our priority bills and letters to the Legislature on our website, which allows all of our stakeholders to have easy and timely access to this information. We also have implemented monthly conference calls with the campus legislative liaisons, as well as an annual training and meeting for the Chancellors Office staff working on bills with our office. And most significantly, we have made progress on implementation of the new systemwide E-Advocacy program, which will improve the CSU’s ability to provide quick and effective calls to action and bill information for specific audiences
It is also heartening to see that 78.3% of the respondents feel that AIR staff is knowledgeable about current issues facing the CSU. The area that needs the most improvement overall is in providing better and more frequent communication, specifically in providing the “right training and tools to meet campus needs”. We will be conducting surveys and conversations to see what type of training is needed, so that our time can be focused on the most critical areas. Our priorities for the coming year are: (1) continued improvement of our website as a means to keep people informed and engaged; (2) planning the training sessions for 2008, as well as ongoing surveys and evaluations for them to keep improving them; (3) continued effort to use the CSU Alumni Council meetings to provide professional development for alumni associations, alumni directors, and volunteers to better lead and assist CSU in leveraging our power and telling our story; (4) our consideration for future meeting locations as well as the inclusion of legislative liaisons at the CSUAC meetings to reinforce the connection between the two in advocacy; (5) the roll out of the Kintera E-Advocacy tools at every campus; and (6) the work we are going to do to develop a strategic plan to guide the use of all our messengers, including the use of a variety of tools to be more effective and efficient.
We would also like to note our achievements in the 2007 legislative proposals and priorities. We had a 75% success rate in sponsored bills and 78% of those that went to the Governor for action. While we know that the coming year will be a challenge from both a legislative and budgetary perspective, we know that the improvements we are making in our communication strategies, both in Sacramento and locally through our campus partners, will help the CSU continue serving the students of California.
A summary of the actual responses is listed
below.
