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Proposal for Improving Students and Staff Communication

Ashford University is a private profit making University, which offers degree programs both on campus and online with the majority of its students studying online. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain an effective interaction between its staff and students to establish an open learning process and avoid withdraws by unsatisfied clients. Stated herein is a review of advisors and teacher’s response time at Ashford University and plan of development plans. Discussion below states designed communication strategies to improve Ashford University student service delivery.
Ashford University has a vast population of students enrolled in various programs in its curriculum because of its online programs. Ashford University has a primary goal of making profits; efficient student services are a primary concern to prevent withdraws and achieve this objective. Withdraw of students will lower the university revenues which will minimize their profits. Therefore, to maintain higher returns, student services should be addressed in order to keep Ashford University customers satisfied. Efficient communication helps to reduce irritation from students by display a commitment to feasibility, and it is an invaluable tool especially in online programs. Most respondents complain of unfriendly customer service and lack of proper communication channels necessary for quality learning. Their queries do not receive prompt response and at times, they are completely ignored.
Ashford University experiences student and staff problems that relate to communication. When enrolled in this institution, the tradition dictates that everyone gets a financial, academic and an enrolment advisor. These advisors are critical, and they affect the overall performance of a student’s life. Students have complications with communicating with most of these advisors and the course instructors. It is necessary to maintain close contact especially considering Ashford University has a five-week sturdy program implying limited time. Financial and academic advisors often change creating confusion and uncertainty to the students. On the other hand, academic advisors derail in responding to student enquiries. A lot of time passes by before they can respond to phone calls or student emails leaving students frustrated.
Most Universities ensure consistency in student advisors and efficiency in the instructor’s responses to maintain stability. Consistency makes students comfortable and accustomed with their advisors fast thereby saving time essential to ensure success in their education Apart from technology, Ashford University needs to consider interactions between its staff and students as an instrument of achieving its goal of fostering higher education and at the same time promoting self-growth (Ashford University, 2010). Efficient communication with advisors is essential. This will help improve Ashford University student services by establishing sources that are more reliable than existing ones.
Financial advisors often fail to review records and most of them do not even know the students assigned to them. Academic advisors need to keep students informed but here at Ashford University it takes too long to respond to student queries. The five-week program is extremely short compared to the traditional 16-week system; as such, students need to be acquainted with their advisors and instructors as soon as possible. Ashford University has excellent tools of instruction, but effective Communication with instructors is essential for clarification of doubts. These tools of instructions should not be used as a substitute for instructors but rather as a supportive tool. There should be significant interaction between the teacher and students.
The university prides itself as having a qualified faculty and non-teaching staff. However, this staff overlooks student services hence the need to improve on their responsibility to student affairs. With a short program courses, online students have limited time to be acquainted with their instructors for any problem solving. Ashford University instructor’s takes time to post grades for previous weeks discussions and provide feedback on enquires. Delayed feedback with each passing day reduces the time required for utilization of time in the learning process and time to work on later deadlines. Timely feedback and posting of grades is important considering the short program.
Proposed plans will ensure effective student services by improving on student-staff interactions. In order to take care of frustrated students, advisors should have a reasonable time to return calls from students. Advisors should be maintained for the entire university years while making sure they respond to student requests soonest possible. This will allow the student to understand their advisors well thereby making them easy while communicating with them. Dr. Araujo states that the key to success stems from effective and flexible communication (Araujo, 2006). The University should appropriate advisors for the entire student days until graduation and implements stiff penalties to advisors who do not respond to students on time.
The following plans indicate methods of reducing frustration from students and feasibility administration through fostering effective student staff relationship. To deal with course work interaction, only those instructors who best meets and are willing to assisting in implementation of its quality matters motto should be hired. These will be only those instructors who are willing to respond to student problems encountered in the online courses. Although the university has organized tools of teaching such as writing labs and audio-visual aids, instructors remain the best source of knowledge. To ensure this strategy works the University should consider rewarding those instructors who devote more time to students and encourage constructive interactions. Incentives will motivate teachers to willingly offer their time even past working hours to students who have issues that need consultation.
Ashford university administration needs to consider actively involving student community in seeking a solution to problems relating to student services. Students should be given an opportunity to evaluate their instructors as an attempt to institute checks on faculty. Student assessment reports will be a credible source of providing details of nonperforming staff to the administration.

Conclusion

Communication between the students and faculty is an important tool in education system as it is an avenue of transferring knowledge. Instructors remain the most important learning tool even where well established online learning technology exists. Effective communication also contributes positively to a student performance (Araujo, 2006). Advisors neglect students creating distrust in the university. The University should become more responsive to student affairs in order to restore trust in the faculty and university staff. These plans play a vital role in ensuring satisfaction and increased students’ performance. Ashford University needs to change its services to students in order to stay on top as an excellent education provider especially with the current boom in online market for education. The online demand for this program has excelled recently due to increased number of students with busy lives.

Araujo, A. (2006). Communication Research: Qualitative and interpretive methods:

Reading packet II Staunton: Mary Baldwin College
Ashford, University. (2010). About us. Retrieved July 2010, from Ashford University.
http://www. ashford. edu/info/