The Leaders Collective

The Leaders Collective survey offered positive feedback from the first two cohorts of graduate students regarding interest in participation. Of the 40 members asked to take the survey, 58% responded with the respondents being almost evenly split among the first and second cohort. According to a study conducted by Yehuda Baruch (1999), the average response rate to academic surveys is 55.6%, so the response rate of the Leaders Collective survey is slightly above average at 58%.

 

In addition to having a high response rate, the survey resulted in very high interest levels in participation. 100% of respondents said that they were somewhat or very interested in being a part of the Leaders Collective. The fact that all respondents want to be a part of the Leaders Collective illustrates the need for a post-graduate group for Andrews Institute graduates.

 

Survey respondents were also asked to gauge their interest level in specific activities to be held as a part of the Leaders Collective programming. Again, the interest level in participation for suggested activities was extremely high, ranging from 86% to 100% of respondents interested. Because the Leaders Collective is intended to be self-sustainable, much of the planning and coordination of activities will be carried out by members of the Leaders Collective. Therefore, respondents were asked to gauge their interest level in participation in the planning of these activities. Not surprisingly, interest levels in planning of events were lower than interest levels in participation of events. However, interest levels in planning activities were still very high, ranging from 73% to 91% of respondents interested. These high levels of interest indicate that the development of Leaders Collective activities closely aligns with the already existing needs of potential members of the Leaders Collective, such as the need for further collaboration on specific issues and the need for continued leadership development through refresher days at the Institute.

 

They were four activities that all respondents were interested in participation, and all other activities showed very high interest levels ranging from 86% to 96% of interested reposndents. See Table 1 below for actual percentages.

 

			Interest in Activities	Interest in PLANNING Activities
			Interested	Interested
Refresher Days			96%	91%
Field Trips			86%	77%
Institute Events			100%	77%
Networking Opportunities			100%	82%
Social Events			100%	73%
Promotion of Projects/ Achievements			95%	82%
Collaboration on Projects/ Initiatives			100%	86%
Community Impact Series			91%	91%

Table 1: Respondent Interest Levels

 

The survey also asked respondents to offer suggestions for topics to be addressed in the Community Impact Series. The responses ranged from affordable housing to disaster preparedness to immigration issues. (For a full list of suggested topics, see Appendix E.) Not surprisingly, many of the topics suggested reflect issues addressed by the respondents’ master’s projects.  Because of the depth of research into the master’s project, graduates have a unique insight into these specific issues. This desire for further examination of the community issue or challenge reflected in individual graduate work will be useful in designing the Community Impact Series because the series is intended to leverage the work of the graduate projects.