By Marci Kuhrt, Director of Recreational Sports at Viterbo University

Roughly one-third of NIRSA’s 650+ institutional member schools are community colleges or campuses that serve fewer than 5,000 students. These campus recreation programs may be limited by the size of their staff or their access to resources or facilities; they may offer only limited programs relative to the size of the population they actually serve; they may be a start-up program or any combination of these characteristics—however you define a small program, supporting the evolving needs of small colleges and community colleges continues to be an important focus for the Association.

In the past year, the Small College and Community College Task Force has been working to fulfill a series of charges to help the Association towards continued meaningful engagement with its membership. In the spring of 2015, the task force developed guidelines for small campus recreational programs to better describe the constituency the task force represents.

With guidelines in place, the task force began conducting a needs assessment to identify relevant issues as well as identify resources needs of the population. The process began with members of the task force conducting phone interviews of 100 randomly selected individual NIRSA members. Guided by those interview responses, a brief electronic survey has been developed and launched.

This survey is currently open to any current or former individual member of NIRSA; it is also open to representatives from NIRSA institutional members at small programs, including community colleges. The brief survey will remain open through January 31—if you fall into any of the categories listed above and you did not receive an invitation to participate in the survey and would like to share your perspective, please contact NIRSA Membership Outreach Coordinator Emily Hughes.

After the survey has closed, the task force will review the responses to identify relevant issues impacting small campus recreation programs; the group will also begin evaluating current and potential resources for this segment of the membership. The task force will make recommendations to the NIRSA Board of Directors based on the findings from the survey and from their resource evaluation.

Results from the survey will be confidential and will be used for research purposes only. Results will not be linked to any individual or institution. If you have questions about the survey, feel free to contact any member of the Small Schools and Community Colleges Task Force.
For more information please feel free to contact NIRSA Membership Outreach Coordinator Emily Hughes.