by Jenna Nicodemus and Simon Forsting
The Cento recently conducted a Student Satisfaction Survey to represent student voices on various campus matters: housing, meal plans, public safety, Greek Life, accommodations, and more. A total of 127 respondents participated, which is exactly 50 more students than last year’s survey. This represents approximately 8% of the student body. While a modest number, we still believe the trends in the results are worth reporting on. Our survey analysis team consisted of the Cento’s Editor-in-Chief, Jenna Nicodemus, and BNS major, Simon Forsting, ‘26.
Our survey consisted of 3 sections. The first section was a simple demographic survey. The second section had students rate their satisfaction with various aspects of Centre College out of 5 points, with 5 indicating the highest satisfaction. The final section was an optional free response section where students could elaborate on their answers.
Our respondents were evenly split between years, with roughly a quarter of respondents pertaining to each academic year. The majority of respondents were women (61.4%), while about a quarter were men (26%), and a modest percentage were nonbinary (11.8%). Most respondents identified as white (78%), with a small percentage identifying as Black (8.7%), among other racial identities: 4.7% were Hispanic/Latino, 3.9% were Multiracial, and 3.1% were Asian.
Findings:
General Areas of Satisfaction
The highest rating of satisfaction was for quality of professors (4.19), followed by feeling safe on campus (3.86), and the CCPD services (3.67). Other relatively higher scores included Centre Global (3.55), the Title IX office (3.37), ease of receiving academic accommodations (3.29), and the RA system (3.16).
Mid-range values include administration’s treatment of professors (3.13), Greek Life (2.93), overall administration quality (2.91), campus accessibility (2.85), Department of Public Safety (2.84), CentreNet (2.80), meal plans (2.78), and food diversity (2.54).
Lower scores appear for the Residence Life Office (2.41), the housing assignment system (2.31), and Centre’s housing value (2.20). The lowest satisfaction levels are for Centre’s communications about financial aid (2.05), total cost of Centre (1.72), and student worker compensation (1.65).
Administration, Administrative Resources, and Cost
Administrative satisfaction decreased across class years. Out of 5, the satisfaction score average started at 3.37 for first-year students, but dropped to 2.91 for fourth-years. Sophomores and juniors followed this downward trend. The difference between first- and fourth-year overall satisfaction is statistically significant (p = 0.00038).
On average, public satisfaction with administrative resources at Centre (i.e., RLO, DPS, CCPD, and TitleIX) decreased with age. Although we would expect seniors to be relying most heavily on the resources offered by the CCPD, we noted that reported satisfaction on average was slightly lower for seniors (3.33) than first years (3.88).
One student commented that “because of how departments have to constantly justify their existence monetarily, and how opaque admin is from a student perspective,” they have ”become increasingly disillusioned over the years,” as admin does not seem to “care about what students care about … They don’t ask or respond to student feedback.”
Similarly, another student said, “In all four years that I’ve been at Centre, I have never once felt that administration has listened to us. We try to go to them with issues, and I genuinely was laughed at by an administration member when I went to them about the AC. Even my professors agreed this was horrendous.”
Another student said, regarding cost: “I really wish that I would’ve known that Centre tuition would increase so much every year. It’s not fair for students … to not know that the scholarship they use freshman year might not be sufficient for all four years.”
Housing
Housing satisfaction was low across all years. Satisfaction with the housing assignment system ranged from an average of 2.68 (first year) to 2.37 (fourth year), with sophomores and juniors dipping even lower.
One student said, “The housing on campus is severely neglected. There are still dozens of washers and dryers on campus that are out of use or broken, despite several complaints to RAs, facilities, and an entire report produced by SGA Campus Improvements last spring semester. SLO and RLO argues that they are licensed out by another company, so repairs are left to them, but they do not prioritize communication and urgency to fix these machines.”
Another student said, “I believe that this college is too expensive for how poor quality it is.” They cited the “first year dorms [being] gross, hav[ing] mold issues, and leak[ing] everywhere.” Another student was frustrated that “[e]verything is broken,” and said that “we pay way too much to live in these conditions.”
Another student pointed out the absurdity of Centre making it difficult to “live off campus, even though the incoming class keeps increasing, with no added dorms/space.”
Disability Housing
Interestingly, people who self-identified having disabilities ranked being very slightly more satisfied with the RLO on average, as compared to individuals who self-reported not having any disabilities (average score of 2.5 for disabled, vs 2.4 for non disabled). However, satisfaction with accessibility amenities was lower amongst those with disabilities (average score of 2.4 vs 2.89). Results may have been skewed given how small the group of disabled student respondents was.
One student said “the process” of receiving housing accommodations “was terrible.” Another student echoed this, saying, “The Residence Life Office is consistently the most and only frustrating part of Centre to me. I have never had a smooth interaction with them in all my time on this campus.”
Another student commented on Centre’s lack of accessibility, and that even though “historic buildings are much more difficult to renovate and make accessible … that doesn’t change that people with physical disabilities and mobility concerns will have a difficult time moving about campus, and a near impossible time actually living in most of these dorms.” They went on to suggest that “[e]ven simple, band-aid remedies like hiring other students to pick up mail or do laundry for physically impaired students would greatly improve their quality of life.”
Meal Plans
Satisfaction with the quality of food at Centre trended more positively on average for men than women, with an average satisfaction score for men being 3.12 and 2.6 for women. Satisfaction with the variety of options was also ranked more positively amongst male students than female students (3.2 vs 2.2). Nonbinary students were in between for both questions, with average satisfaction at 2.9, and satisfaction with options at 2.7.
Granted, we had fewer male recipients than women. This could explain the lower skew in male satisfaction—we can presume that had we surveyed more men, the results would have been more comparable to that of women (lower overall).
One student said regarding meal swipes that they “should be allowed to be used for other people,” because they “already paid for them … Not allowing me to spend them for other people is withholding goods I have already purchased.” Another student seconded this, saying, “They’re our swipes. We bought them.”
One student said that “[t]he food is poor quality” and that they “know of multiple people getting food poisoning from Cowan and of having issues with cross contamination of food allergens.” Meanwhile, another student said that “the dining hall does offer lots of options, but consistently does not cook meat well enough.”
Another student suggested that “dining should improve through more incorporation of local produce and meat products,” and “should also offer more dining options on the weekend and more dining options in general.” Another student suggested that Centre should “get more workers to handle more [food] orders,” especially the Flame Cafe, which is “the only place where you can get food for meal swipes” past 9:00PM.
Greek Life
On average, white students ranked being more satisfied with Greek Life on campus than any of the other racial minority groups combined (average score of 3.1 vs 2.2). Granted, most of our respondents were white, and white people make up a larger portion of Greek Life involvement on Centre, which could explain why they were ranking Greek Life more positively on average.
By gender, Greek life satisfaction was 3.06 for men, 3.00 for women, and 2.33 for nonbinary students.
One student commented that they felt Greek Life gets “first priority for a lot of things at Centre.” They went on to say, “I have a lot of friends in Greek Life, and I feel like the structure of it causes unneeded separation between members and nonmembers, and rivalries between members of different sororities/frats.”
Another student said that “[w]ith the rising population of Black students on campus, I would greatly appreciate it if at least one D9 fraternity or sorority was added.”
Title IX
Men reported higher satisfaction than women with the Title IX office (3.58 vs. 3.28) and safety (4.15 vs. 3.78). The difference in safety ratings is statistically significant.
Discrimination on Campus
Only 22 students out of the total number who completed the survey (127) reported a discrimination event. A majority of students who reported a discrimination event were women. Although women did make up a larger percentage of total respondents to the survey, they made up an even larger proportion of the students discriminated against (10% more).
White students barely surpassed the number of students of color in the discriminated against group (i.e., only 10 out of 100 white students surveyed reported discrimination, while 7 out of the 11 Black students surveyed reported discrimination). Granted, these findings also reflect how few students of color were surveyed, so we would caution against these findings being generalized for the entire campus population.
A student commented that “Centre treats their colored students as if we are animals, ghosts, or talking points. We’re never treated as actual students.” Another student said that “[s]ome discrimination in class has been evident, from both peers and professors.”
Agreement and Disagreement Amongst Students
Standard deviation values indicate how much agreement there is among students, where lower values mean more agreement. The most agreement appears in ratings of quality of professors (0.68), safety (0.88), and student worker compensation (0.86). The least agreement appears in meal plans (1.24), food diversity (1.19), and financial aid communication (1.19). Overall, then, students show the most consistent agreement on quality of professors and safety, and the least agreement on food, housing, and financial topics.
Correlations
- The strongest correlation is between satisfaction with Centre administration’s treatment of professors, and the satisfaction with the quality of administration at Centre (0.66).
- The next strongest is between satisfaction with meal plans and satisfaction with the diversity of food options on campus (0.61).
- Another strong correlation appears between satisfaction with the housing assignment system and Residence Life (0.60).
- Satisfaction with communication surrounding financial aid and tuition changes is strongly correlated with satisfaction with total cost of Centre (0.55).
Conclusion
That concludes the summary of data we collected and the analysis we conducted on the results. Of course, we would like to thank all respondents for their time and effort in responding to our survey, and hope that you all continue to participate in the following years, so that the Cento can continue to report on what the student body is feeling.
In all, it seems that the student body is greatly discontented by Centre’s recent rise in tuition, especially given the poor quality of housing and dining services on campus. The poor quality of housing has been an unaddressed issue at Centre for years: in the Cento’s student satisfaction survey last year, housing was also rated as one of the most dissatisfied aspects. The dining options also appear to be a disappointment for students, especially the meal plan options and the lack of opportunities to use prepaid meal swipes.
Of course, there are plenty of things to be pleased about, too. Just as last year, the quality of professors at Centre was rated highly, and students have consistently commented on the high value of their education. Several administrative offices were also rated highly; one student said, “The new Title IX office folks are awesome!”
That being said, we at the Cento also acknowledge that these results may not speak for every student’s experience, especially given our small sample size. Indeed, one respondent stated that in their time at Centre, they have been “very lucky with things such as housing, classes, and food,” and “have personally had very little conflict in achieving things.”
Even so, the commonality and frequency of certain complaints should not be ignored. While many of these issues logistically cannot be fixed overnight, the Cento hopes these results act as a wake-up call for administration at Centre. At the very least, we would all appreciate more transparency and more frequent communication on what steps are being taken to address these matters.