Western Alumni, Class of 2005 - Spring 2006 Survey Findings

Gary McKinney, Western Washington University
Sara Jones, Western Washington University
Richard Bulcroft, Western Washington University
Linda Clark, Western Washington University

Abstract

Western’s first Alumni Survey was conducted in 1988; it’s development and administration was in response to the Higher Education Coordinating Board (HEC Board) requirement to survey graduates every biennially. Western was done so diligently and reliably since. Twenty years on, as academic concerns have changed, so has the survey; however, the original “fourteen common items” proscribed by the HEC Board have remained. Similarly, the administration of the survey adapted: from a paper-and-pencil only mail-out form to the current on-line and telephone method. Yet regardless of the type of administration, satisfactory response rates have been attained. The current report includes data from the Alumni Survey which was administered online and over the telephone in the Spring of 2006. The alumni who were surveyed graduated within the 2004-2005 academic year; therefore, respondents were anywhere from a year to eighteen months from graduation. There were originally 2,883 alumni total, but 301 were eliminated due to no on bad contact information. There were 364 alumni who took a long online version of the survey, 633 who took a shorter online version of the survey, and 214 who took the phone version of the survey. In total, 1211 alumni took the survey out of 2581, for a response rate of 47%.