Kevin Petrie

Tell our VC what you think

Thursday, November 25, 2021
Survey to help us with our decision making

Change: it’s a constant. That’s how it seems to be in the higher education sector (and here at Avondale). As part of our ongoing journey, we’re seeking feedback from Seventh-day Adventist Church members in Australia and New Zealand about what they perceive our purpose to be and about what they consider as being the enablers for and barriers to potential students. We spoke with Vice-Chancellor—and the lead researcher for this feedback project—Professor Kevin Petrie and asked:

Why this survey now?
We’re looking at what we do and how we do it—including the courses we offer, particularly those important to our church stakeholders. We’ve consulted with a number of groups, like senior church leaders, our Avondale community, but we haven’t yet connected more broadly with the person in the pew. We exist to serve them and we want to know what they think about what we offer.

What do you hope to find? What do you expect to find?
I’m hoping to better understand how churches across Australia and New Zealand feel about recommending Avondale to the young adults in their congregations. I’m expecting to find a diverse range of opinions. I’m sure there’ll be some surprises among them.

You receive a lot of anecdotal feedback. Why formalise the process?
Results from a survey will give us more confidence, particularly if we get a high response rate. We’ll be able to use the data in a more constructive way. When you make changes, you’re investing time and resources, so we want to ensure we’re hearing the voices of our church stakeholders correctly.

Why should I complete the survey?
Because it will help inform some of the decisions we make. And, look, it’s not a long survey—we’re not trying to capture everything, just some of the key areas as we move forward. So, in only six to eight minutes, you can make a contribution towards the picture we see. We’ll be looking back at the picture and asking, “What does this mean for the changes we’re thinking of making, for the changes we should think of making?”.

When will we hear about the results?
We’d like to have at least key results available by February.

And you’re personally leading the project.
I didn’t feel comfortable continuing our process of sustainable transformation without having all the information we could possibly get. We’re never going to make changes that will be to everyone’s satisfaction, but we have to go through the change-making process together. Whenever I’ve come to a new role, I do my best to find where the needs are and to address the ones I can. But it’s not until 18 months to two years into a role that I get a clearer view. With my two years coming up in March next year, I feel I’ve hit that period. As I start to see things more clearly, it’s also the time at which I find myself reaching out for more perspectives. As important as all the perspectives are in the first few months of a new role, I feel it’s at a point now where they’re more important than ever.

Church member survey

Thank you for helping us better understand the way you think about Avondale. The survey should take only six to eight minutes to complete.

START SURVEY

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