In Summer 2005 Mercator College undertook its first quality control survey. The survey was motivated by a workshop in which the college team participated under the guidance of Mercator College’s Honorary Member Professor Werner Bergholz. The questionnaire used in the survey was modeled after an instrument used in College III in 2004—thank you friends.

One hundred Mercatorians (of 165) participated in the survey.

As to gender and nationality of Mercatorians in the Academic Year, Mercator College had the typical three “great” nationalities also as their three strongest nationalities, Bulgarians, Germans, and Romanians, but in a reverse order. Nepalis and Poles were a bit more frequent in Mercator than in all of Jacobs. Most participating Mercatorians had lived in the college since their first semester. This figure signals that those most integrated have—as should be expected—also participated most actively in the survey.

The questionnaire first addressed Mercatorians’ satisfaction with the facilities of the college. Looking at ‘low flyers’ and ‘high flyers,’ the printer areas and the servery stuck out, the printer area as least appreciated, and the decoration and flair of the servery as most appreciated. Smokers disliked the smokers lounge.

Even less appreciated by Mercatorians was the tidiness of the floor kitchens, by female students in particular, something possibly changeable by the Mercatorians themselves, but how…..? The same goes for the omnipresent Aramark cups. A majority of Mercatorians found them highly annoying, but year after year after year cups disappear in abundance….

The college leadership was sufficiently known to Mercatorians. Two percent did not know the student members of the college team, 3 percent did not know the College Masters, 8 percent did not know the college office manager, while almost 29 percent did not know the RAs (of the Academic Year 2004/5). The students from the college office team took Rank 1 for flexibility, taking initiative, and being interactive, while the College Office Manager ranked first in friendliness, with College Masters runners-up with regard to interaction and initiative.

Life in Mercator was described as relaxed (49.5%), open (being yourself—42.3%), uncomplicated (33.3%), and warm (27.3%). Looking at negative attributes, Mercator obviously was not seen as the ‘action college:’ Life in Mercator was characterized as passive (26.3) and as dull (19.4%)—while being given the attribute ‘home’ by almost 25% of the residents. Home a bit dull?

On a rating scale transformed to percentages, 72.5% of all Mercatorians saw the college as a safe place.

More detailed analyses of preference ratings show that for none of the preference ratings are there any significant differences by nationality or gender (the latter except for kitchen tidiness, which boys did not mind as much as girls did). Typically students who had been living in the college for a longer time gave more positive ratings to most questions.

What are the problems to be dealt with during the current year? What needs to be done? One can probably highlight four points: (1) RA integration, (2) printer area appreciation, (3) smokers’ lounge attractiveness, and (4) floor kitchen tidiness. On all four points the college team currently takes measures, but their success can only be evaluated when the survey is repeated this coming summer. As is seemingly the case in every communal living arrangement: The hardest problem for the college leadership is the tidiness of the floor kitchens. Does a dishwasher (which we certainly cannot afford!) do the trick, or is it more successful to close down dirty, untidy kitchens for a number of days (or weeks, depending on the degree of dirtiness), should we pay cleaning from the floor budget (instead of financing floor events from it—probably also too expensive), or would a kitchen decoration contest help (the kitchens are probably the most sterile rooms in the college—except for the public toilets in the ground floor).

In any event, Mercatorians like Mercator College. How this develops during this academic year remains to be seen.

Analyses conducted by  Nika Yugay and Jenny Paturyan