Is Engagement the Answer or the Question?


Posted by Nick Simonton on 04 May 2011 / 16 Comments


As Student Affairs (or in my case Student Life) professionals, one of the key metrics by which we measure ourselves is the level of “engagement” with our students – how they engage with our programs, services and campus in general. We’re constantly trying to find ways to involve our students and encourage them to use our services and come to our events – to share knowledge and build community and, well, engage.

We’re constantly asking how we can engage with our students more. In fact, we ask it so routinely that when I hear it, part of me shudders a little.

As I look across the landscape of channels in which we push out to communicate and engage with our students (walk-in appointments, events, individual counseling sessions, workshops, infosessions, posters, TV screens, flyers, postcards, Facebook posts, Twitter feeds, Foursquare check-ins, blogs, vlogs, text messages, websites and email – lots and lots of email) I’m often left wondering: in what way are we not engaging with them?

We communicate and engage with them through pretty much every imaginable pathway, yet we still believe we’re not engaging with students and they’re not engaging with us as they should.

This brings up the next question: in what way are we expecting engagement? At what point will we believe students have engaged? Is this possible?

What do you think?

Are we over communicating with our students? Are we asking them to be too engaged? At what point will we feel we have successfully met that engagement threshold or are we truly asking the wrong question?

Nick Simonton manages the marketing and communications for Student Life and the Career Center at the University of Washington.

Written by Nick Simonton


  • http://twitter.com/revsaberre Kevin Saberre Jr

    I think we get so hooked on engaging all the students in our institutions that we over look the work we do for specific groups of students. We try hard to cast a wide net of engagement ( in the various ways you defined) that maybe we lose focus on the work that those media outlets can do for certain students.

  • http://twitter.com/KLoseyWilliams Kristin

    Nick thank you for this post. It really does make you think. I think we have an expectation (sometimes a quantity) that we will get a response, take part in a conversation, have reflection in order to know that engagement is taking place. I just re-read an article (http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/WhatemIsemStudentEngagementAny/199393) which reminds me that engagement is “a rendezvous between learning and the digital tools and techniques that excite students.”

    I think we are engaging students… but probably not as many as we’d all like???

  • http://profiles.google.com/lmendersby Lisa Endersby

    You ask some great questions here Nick! I think Mike Severy (@MikeSevery) tweeted earlier today that engagement is often a question of depth, and that was my first thought too when I read your post. There is no shortage of means and methods to get information to students (and for students to share information with us) but I’m a firm believer in the quality of a message rather than the quantity of posts on Facebook or tweets on Twitter. When I create learning outcomes for student programs I try to focus on deep learning – what they learn, how they learn and why they’re engaged at all. There is certainly value to investigating program outcomes (how many, how much, how often) but, to me, engagement is a personal choice and experience that is difficult to measure purely quantitatively.

    There’s also the difficulty of always measuring the engagement of the same students at the same events at the same time. I agree with Kristin’s comment that we are certainly engaging students but perhaps not all those we’d like to. While we have diversified the medium have we begun to diversify the message? Which students are we engaging with and how can we reach out to others?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=40608041 Darnell Bradley

    I think we are not communicating intentionally enough—not you specifically, I mean generally. I think you get off of the engagement treadmill by engaging students in their niche. Imagine how we are engaged by products, ideas, or anything else that tries to engage us: its bombardment in a lot of cases, whether we are interested or not. Imagine getting daily tweets from the Hair Club for Men, even if you are not interested?

    We end up bombarding students trying to generally engage them, without speaking to what their specific interests are. For example, do they gather with a group of friends who watch Celebrity Apprentice every week? Find the students whose niche is Celebrity Apprentice, and speak to them…find other students who are interested in the NBA Playoffs…speak to them. Find their niches among their social groups, and we find out what excites their engagement.

    • Nick

      Great points Darnell. So, the question then becomes one of resources and ability to seek out those niches. Thoughts on how to manage both?

  • http://profiles.google.com/lauraneidert85 Laura Neidert

    We’re always going to want more more more “engagement”. I have been where you are, and sometimes think that we educators can come off as “desperate suitors”-if you show an inkling of interest, we’re going to deluge you with information. One thing that would help this situation is defining engagement, as you mention, and then realizing that it’s OK to not have deeply meaningful interactions with every student you meet.

  • http://twitter.com/UTSA_VPSA Gage Paine

    Then, of course, there is the question of what we mean by engagement. Is engagement showing up at a basketball game or a concert? Does just showing up build community? The question has been raised about depth of engagement, but the reality is that it’s hard to have depth with everyone. On the other end of the spectrum, I have often had the experience of learning about amazing ways students are engaged on campus that have nothing to do with Student Affairs programs. Engaging students on campus is our job, but we aren’t the only ones doing this work. Part of the challenge is that this is such a multi-faceted question, but that is also a positive – we aren’t the only ones responsible for fostering student engagement. Perhaps our time is better spent in finding ways to ‘engage’ colleagues across campus to increase the breadth and depth of opportunities….

  • Gavin Henning

    Great questions Nick. I think there is a difference between providing information and engaging our students. Rather than us engaging our students, I think about it as us helping students engage with our institution, programs, services. I like to ask how they are connecting to us and how is that fostering their learning and development.

    Great discussion!

  • Bryce Hughes

    This is a very timely post considering how the NSSE (National Survey of Student Engagement) recently recieved some scathing criticism:
    http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/04/07/research_raises_questions_about_nsse

    • Nick

      Ah yes, the “Nessie”. I hadn’t seen this article, thanks for sharing Bryce.

  • Molly Gary

    I agree that the question is are we trying to actually engage or are we really just trying to get our students to read what we want them to read? Too many years ago I worked in Campus Ministry before the days of facebook and twitter. Even then, we thought it was important to engage with our students so we went to the cafeteria and ate with them, we went to student activities and mingled, we walked around campus and actually talked to students face to face because we didn’t have all the possibilities that exist today. I think it’s too easy to say that the way to reach students is through there prefered e-mail or twitter or facebook. Electronic communications may be the best way to communicate information today but they also provide a wall that both students and administrators can hide behind. Communicating in short little misspelled sentences may be a way of sharing information but to truly “engage” I think we still have to show up in person, face to face and be willing to offer a hug, a high five, a laugh(a real one, not just lol) or words of encouragement or support that can be seen in the eyes as well as heard from the mouth.

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  • Anonymous

     Nick, That was a lot of questions, my man!  It sounds like you’re still processing this…

    First, engagement and involvement are different things.  Check out this research (Wolf, Wendel 2009)  http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_college_student_development/v050/50.4.wolf-wendel.html
    The things you’re talking about as engagement, though, are neither engagement or involvement, they’re marketing tools used for the purpose of drawing students to your office and programs.  Some of them are more participatory than others, but they don’t require much student investment or action.

    If I may summarize, it seems that you, in your role in marketing and communications are feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information that you’re pushing out for students and the number of media that you’re using to push that message out, and your assumption is that students feel the same way.  

    The goal of your job (and by extension, your office) is to get students actively involved in their career search prior to graduation.  I think only your students can give you an idea if you’re “over marketing”, but in my mind, the end justifies the means so if your methods are getting students to actively participate in their career search, then i think you’re doing things well.  However, constant evaluation of these things is always wise.

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