A survey conducted by the UNA Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment in October 2012 asked new freshmen what was important to them about UNA and how satisfied they were about certain subjects.

This is the first time at UNA that a survey has been conducted on just new freshmen. For this survey, 230 freshmen participated in the questionnaire.

UNA freshmen were asked about subjects that ranged from the quality of classroom buildings and atmosphere to the availability of scholarships, majors that were offered and social events.

When it comes to tutoring services, the freshman students were satisfied with the services more than they thought it was important.

“This is a sign of overkill,” said Andrew Luna, the director of the UNA Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment offices on campus.

Rob Koch, director of the UNA Center for Writing Excellence, a tutoring service on campus, declined to comment for this article.

Luna also said that, according to other studies, 30 percent of freshman students are leaving UNA because of GPA problems and yet these tutoring services are still offered.

“All of us at UNA are very concerned about student success,” Luna said.

Luna said he encourages students to utilize services before expansion of services can begin. One suggestion from Luna is for SGA and SOAR to really emphasize the use of services on campus.

“I think that students telling students about the services would be a lot more effective than if a faculty member tries to emphasize the use of tutoring services,” Luna said. “Students probably would listen to their peers more about things like this.”

Some students agree that tutoring services should be used more before they can be expanded upon.

“I think waiting for more activity is important,” said Ashley White, a UNA student. “I think that expanding with the same amount of students participating would not be a good idea.”

Other students actually know about services on campus but choose not to use them.

“I know about them; I just cannot motivate myself to go,” said Kristina Roberts, a UNA student. “I am such a slacker when it comes to motivating me to get extra help.”

Other students have actually used services and encourage others to use them as well.

“I used the math tutoring services on campus and the tutor actually knew what she was doing,” said Caroline Whalen.

To view this study on the UNA website, go to http://una.edu/research and click UNA Marketing Research Report 2012 under the White Papers section.