Survey says parking is a nightmare
The results of a national student survey suggest Mount Royal students are happy with their education, but still have problems with parking and tend not to be involved in campus life.
The annual Canadian University Survey Consortium (CUSC) measures how students perceive their institution. Last spring, 450 Mount Royal students completed the survey.
Although Mount Royal is not a university, it still uses the survey to see how the school measures up to other universities across the country.
“The Mount Royal student experience is assessed on the same playing ground as other Canadian universities,” said Georgina Grant, an assessment analyst with the Office of Institutional Analysis and Planning (OIAP) at Mount Royal.
The results were mostly positive; many students are satisfied with small class sizes, an intimate learning environment and a practical curriculum. Overall, Mount Royal students rank their experience on par with university students.
“Being in a program that didn’t have too many people gave me the chance to get to know my instructors and feel comfortable with all of them,” one student wrote in their survey response.
Parking, however, was the main shortcoming identified by students. A shortage of spaces combined with many students driving their cars to school has created a crunch.
“Parking at my school is a nightmare,” one student wrote. “Who likes to leave 40 minutes early for class just to find a parking spot?”
“The parking around the campus is horrendous,” another student wrote. There’s never enough spots and you have to walk 10 miles just to get to the door.”
The survey also found campus life at Mount Royal is lacking — fewer than one-fifth of students surveyed say they attend campus social or cultural activities or belong to on-campus clubs.
Mount Royal uses the survey as a marketing tool. “Results of (the) CUSC are reported nationally in Maclean’s, so there is a significant-sized audience,” Grant said
— The Reflector
