commencement survey

Commencement Survey:Text Analytics Report

About the data

• A total of 624 ASU graduate students from May 12 ceremony were asked the following survey question:

What did you ‘most enjoy’ and ‘recommended improvement’ at the graduation ceremony?

• The responses were in a free-response format and the resulting data was analysed using text analytics software.

ASU Graduates Most Enjoy

Generally, the survey respondents expressed positive sentiment for the Commencement ceremony for Most Enjoy part.

Overall Most Enjoy by ASU Graduates

49

6

45

Distribution of feedbacks in %

Positive Negative Unknown

Speeches:

• The Keynote speech was liked , although it was little too long.

• Favorite speech by Wendy Koop & Dr. Crow .

• Dr. Crow was mentioned in 9% of replies while Wendy Koop in 2%

• She spoke to the point. Human rights and equality for our generations.

• Dr. Crow’s speech was applauded by many. His speech was energetic and he believed what he said. Thus, inspiring the graduates.

Mostly talked were Wendy Koop and Dr. Crow.

Positive Responses:

• Like -24%

• Excellent- 8%

• Recognized- 5%

• Good- 4%

*includes both the exact words and their synonyms.

Most Frequent Positive Words

“The feeling of having completed my successful undergraduate career and being able to share and celebrate that exciting accomplishment with loved ones.”

Like“Listening to President Crow's speech was powerful and impactful. He gave an amazing speech that left me feeling energized and inspired.”

Excellent

“Highly rated nationally and mostly good professors”

Good“The nicest part of the program was standing up and being recognized for my work or the program I was in.”

Recognized

Most Frequent Statements

Online students from other states and far away from Kentucky, Wisconsin and Virginia found solace in the ceremony and were rejoiced by meeting other graduating students.

Similarity Among Concepts:

appropriate

speech

excellent

commencementpart

asu

students

video

school

success

ceremony

like

musicgrad

accomplishments

friends

UnknownPositiveOrganizationFeatures

Type Colors

234567

Similarity

Positive Feelings

• The positive feelings were centered to the beautiful night, fireworks, inspiring speeches, amazing videos in the presentation and good time spent with family and friends, Chase field was an amazing venue too.

• Venue was comfortable and also the place was giving positive feeling as graduates met old friends from their 1st year, people socialized with new students and sat around where nobody was from the same school.

• “I enjoyed being able to be a part of such a large university at once. I was allowed to enjoy the celebration with my friends from different schools within ASU instead of just people in my core classes.”

• Dr. Crow and faculty were very thoughtful about the whole ceremony, the speeches inspired many to chase big dreams. Supportive and made graduates feel proud of them being the ASU alumni.

• Learning about the progress of ASU over the years and how it is globally recognized university.

• The speakers pointing to the capabilities of the graduates to go fort and improve themselves and the world

Positive attitude

Scope Of Improvement:

• “Unable to see my son unless the camera was scanned by (better camera work) some schools complained (Liberal Arts) we were left out from camera crew as we never saw ourselves on the big screen. “

• “I mostly enjoyed the recognition of the class as a whole that graduated. I wished the speakers would have followed the same guidelines that the speakers for the college of health solutions followed on Friday the 13th. Their speeches were more focused on the graduates than their own accomplishments.”

Improvements:

• “I liked when they addressed the graduates. However, there were not enough camera views of the liberal arts and sciences graduates. It made it feel less person because I could not see myself on screen.”

• “A sense that I defied all odds to come back and finish college. Being a former addict I overcame all obstacles. Also the passing of my girlfriend early in the semester was hard to get through but I made it a goal to do it for her.”

Miscellaneous

• The ballpark had enough seats but graduation was so informal, students were disengaged, could not hear half of the speakers. Fireworks were awesome and singers and the video. It could have been better.

• “Saying I could be there. The atmosphere and caliber of students we were surrounded by was disappointing. There were various drunk students around us, and students smoking during the ceremony and they were not apprehended until 15 minutes before the end.”

• “I enjoyed the whole program overall; Getting out of the arena was very easy compared to other commencements I have attended (*cough UA)”

Negative feeds -3%

Correlation For Most Enjoy:

### Speech

3. President Crow’s Speech

1. Academics

2. Student graduation

.

### Feeling of accomplishment Atmosphere.

Most Spoken

#### Academics:

Student graduation

Family. Chase-field.

Atmosphere.

President

Few more:

AtmosphereStudent

graduation student graduate.

Speech Chase field

### Academic Student

graduation:

### President

crow

Speech

Student Graduation

Academics

Crow’s Speech

Venue & Family

### Family

Chase fieldAcademics

### Chase field

Videos

Family

Student graduation

Academics.

ASU Grads Recommended Improvements:

Overall Recommended Improvements By Graduates:

5246

2

Distribution of feedback in %Negative Positive Unknown

Generally, the survey respondents expressed negative sentiment for the Commencement ceremony for Recommended Improvement part.

• Better– 15%

• Speaker- 13%

• Too long- 10%

• Ceremony- 9%*includes both the exact words and their synonyms.

Words Used Frequently

Similarity Map

likespeaker

flow traffic process

repetitive

meaningful

real

keynote speaker

guest speaker

poor

worth

pushy

better

mess

timely

organization

UnknownProductsPositiveNegativeAttitudeNegativeContextual

Type Colors

1234567

Similarity

“Better keynote speaker & a better parking.”

Better“Find a speaker that has more of a motivational message and talks less about themselves, their accomplishments and gives a speech that is more applicable to all majors.”

Speaker

“More interaction with the audience, more participation of graduates in the ceremony.”

Ceremony“I think the speaker should be a little shorter. It seemed to be long and people stopped paying attention.”

Too Long

Most Frequent Statements

“Have more volunteers on hand to help guide students on where to go. I was lost for a while trying to find my seat. Chase Field was awful to in and out of. Paying for parking wasn't fun.”

Better Functioning

• Some complaints for the Moeur awards. Students expect them to be called on stage and felicitated by Honorary guests.

• Speakers were poor not everyone could hear it clearly, thus there was little less involvement in the ceremony.

• “Ceremony looked like the celebration of ASU rather than celebration of the students who worked hard to get their degrees.”

For Positive Functioning.

• “Our college had a group of drunk students who were seated in the wrong area and were a complete distraction and were disruptive to the entire college.” (Make sure no drinking & smoking is permitted, install alcohol detectors & better security checking)

• Deploy volunteers who can keep discipline in the crowd, during important times of the ceremony people complained they didn’t pick up the crux due to talking of fellow grad students.

Some Discipline

• “Very few students respected the speaker, and it became clear to me why more serious students do not typically attend the commencement ceremony. It was treated like a football game rather than a formal ceremony - girls in bikinis, people running up and down the aisles during the speaker's talk, and people showing up drunk. It would make me never want to attend another commencement ceremony again.”

• Students treated this event like a football game or a party rather than a ceremony.

Positive Competence

Student Centered

• Make more student oriented than ASU oriented, the keynote speech also could be more about in general rather than focusing kids to go in for teaching as a profession.

• Understand when to end speeches as after conferring degrees people are busy enjoying.

• Some light on the activities of students involved during their academic days.

• Graduation night happens once in a life for many people. It can be made more showmanship by some laser show, more cool videos.

Positive Attitude

• “Make sure students receive a map of where their specific college/schools are. As a volunteer, I received a lot of questions of where students should go. Also, I recommend sending information out regarding designated guest sections- many of the questions came from parents/family/friends on where they should sit.”

• “Recognize Re-entry students that are older like myself. It seems everything is geared towards 22 year old students.”

• During the ceremony keep the students involved. Keep proactive speakers. Guest speakers sounded advertising her role.

• Downtown Phoenix is a crowded place make special traffic arrangements for people driving to the venue. New people will have less good memories navigating to the Chase stadium, on top of parking issues.

Improvement Suggested.

Entry & Exit Issues

• “Please have better entrance and exit strategies setup. It got ridiculously crowded and it could have been a huge disaster had there been an emergency.”

• It could have been set up better as there was less space for parents and more for students.

• Screening for drinking, offensive signs, anything that can cause be injurious.

Registration

• Overall people were disappointed by the exit and entry process as it lacked some proper planning. Taking into consideration the number of people at the venue a strategic way must be implemented to vacate the stadium rather than allowing anybody to walk out from any gate (similar idea for entry).

• Risk of an emergency must be taken into consideration while vacating the Stadium and make sure sufficient gates are open to speed up the process. With volunteers arranged at specific locations to help form a proper line.

• Make sure graduates have designated gates for entering close to their allotted seating arrangements for respective schools.

Entry & Exit.

• Implement a organized seating arrangement in advance, which includes the areas for students, parents, specially abled. Also, provide every student with this pictorial chart in advance via e-mail along with the timings and parking instructions and make it available at the venue too.

• Arrange different gates for audience, students, elders and specially abled. This will ensure comfort for the later.

• Have better parking options, as students were upset for paying the same, although they had parking passes of ASU.

Suggestion

Recommendations

• Disciplined ceremony with proper seating arrangements with systematic entry & exit protocol.

• “Improve the topic of the first commencement speech if that will continue.”

• “More available seats for elderly and handicapped so that families have the chance to sit together and feel comfortable saving seats for special members.”

• Better traffic navigation and parking facility consider the safety factor of the audience at the venue.

Recommendations

Felicitation

• Sort the student of a degree together and also within these sort them as per the specialization. Before students named are called for, announce the degree program and a few words on it, then the specialization with few words and start with respective students. Do it for all the programs and all the specialization so the audience can also know what studies were these students part of.

• Wendy Koop words on the 5 week program for starting teaching was a bit offensive to those attending the 4 years teaching program at the Mary Lou Fulton Teacher’s College, as their work seemed to be considered void.

• Online students feel little ignored as they are new to the people who already have their groups, so some workshop before commencement for these students to gel among with ASU and themselves.

About Degree Felicitation

Strong Correlation For Recommended Improvements:

### Academics

student graduation:

2. Length.

3. Family

4. Keynote speaker

5. Guest speaker.

1.Students graduation

graduating students

Some Crucial Ones

### Students graduation graduating students

1. Students graduation

2. Commencement

Students graduation Drunk students

Stadium seating Seating

### Family

Few more:

### Commencement

Commencement Speaker

### Keynote speech

Students graduation

###Convocation

Seating Graduation students

Length of the speech

### Length

Most Important For Audience Comfort.

### Seating

Stadium seating

Keynote speaker

commencement survey

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