Introduction
Our mission is to ensure an enjoyable stay at the ADU campus and provide students with a high-quality environment that boosts their learning capacity and develops them as well-rounded human beings. The unique atmosphere of engagement in even-rich student life is what draws people from around the world to our campus.
Objectives
Ensuring the variety of activities is vital for increasing the level of satisfaction with campus experience among students. This measure will allow creating a rich and eventful atmosphere. Another objective is to sustain high-quality accommodation for students. The quality of facilities leaves a sizable imprint on both everyday satisfaction and overall experience gained on the campus. The third objective is to maximize student involvement in campus life. Not every student is sociable and engages easily with other people. Therefore, the campus environment needs to be as inviting as possible to ensure that every student is satisfied.
Situation Analysis Strategies
The analysis of the current situation will help determine a course of action or direction for change to increase student satisfaction. There are several strategies to approach the situation analysis. One of them is a 5C analysis. It is aimed at creating an image of an organization’s future product placement, sales, customer approaches, and other aspects of the business. There is also Porter’s Five Forces analysis, which assesses the market environment in order to find possible threats and advantages. These two strategies are better suited for business rather than student self-organization. Therefore, SWOT analysis as a more general and versatile approach is best applied to serve the set objectives.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
One of the strengths of the ADU campus is its multicultural environment. Being a world-class provider of education, Abu Dhabi University attracts thousands of students from around the world. Students with different cultural backgrounds enrich the life of the campus providing opportunities to discover new cultures. A wide range of sports activities including football, basketball, volleyball, and tennis provides a good way to relieve stress after a busy day at the university. A great variety of clubs helps build each student’s individuality and develops additional talents. Above that, they contribute to making friends and acquaintances across the university uniting students from various departments, which creates a friendlier environment.
Weaknesses
The ADU campus has plenty of empty spaces and sandlots. Plain landscape together with the high temperature outside discourages students from meeting outdoors. The scarceness of greenery and disorganized public spaces adds to this problem. The section of Abu Dhabi University related to campus life lacks photos, videos, and contact information. The obsession of youth with the Internet developed certain selectivity in their behavior, so the quality of content needs to satisfy them. The lack of contact information about the club leaders, sporting community on the website complicates the process of finding them in current digital realities.
Opportunities
The prospects of international cooperation with other higher educational institutions could ensure a stable and mutually beneficial student exchange, which can further enrich the diverse environment on the campus. Collaboration with other universities within Abu Dhabi could potentially result in joint events held for two or more campus groups. This will add a higher level to student activity and develop mediator qualities in some of them. The connection could also be established with the universities from other Emirates, which can initiate an exchange of campus traditions and provide a basis for large-scale educational or recreational events on the UAE level uniting campus students across the country. Closer cooperation with Government, not-for-profit organizations, and the Abu-Dhabi community could provide campus students with more opportunities to organize meetings and events with various agendas. Such cooperation allows finding a meeting platform, attracting new students, and bringing popularity to the university and campus.
Threats
The lack of funding could result in degeneration of the quality of campus facilities, and negatively affect the level of student engagement. For example, the proliferation of outdoor activities could be seriously hindered by budget cuts due to the impossibility to create proper public places. Inability to use the university’s means of communication and advertising for promoting campus activities could also produce an adverse effect on the variety of such events and the number of participants. Souring relations with other countries could undermine foreign student exchange and in the long run result in reduced cultural diversity in the ADU campus, which can negatively affect the cultural awareness of students and their satisfaction with their academic experience.
Tactics
One of the tactics to increase the satisfaction of students from campus is to treat students like adults. It is vital to allow them to make choices not only about the content but also about organization, resources, assessment, and other aspects of life on campus. Such attitude builds an environment where students are in control, which develops their responsibility and self-satisfaction. Measuring student satisfaction is also important as it helps make changes in policies along the way. The promotion of ADU values would encourage students to associate themselves with their Alma Mater and make them feel involved. Making campus the second home by means of creating a friendly and understanding atmosphere can also increase student satisfaction.
Evaluation
So far, the campus has been developing in the right direction. Students organized and engaged in a variety of university, community, and governmental projects. The range of recreational and sports activities along with clubs is rather broad. ADU welcomes students from abroad, and the campus always has representatives from other cultures. The campus infrastructure, however, needs adjustments. More shade-creating greenery and comfortable public spaces are required. These adjustments may require some funds that can be raised from the government or ADU. The website section about the campus also needs to reflect the current activities and inform of ways of participation to ensure that every student knows where to find what they like.
Conclusion
In accordance with the outlined mission and objectives, the situation analysis in the form of the SWOT paradigm revealed certain strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Strong points include the high prestige of the ADU, wide range of clubs, sport, and recreational facilities. Weaknesses incorporate the following: empty spaces, lack of greenery and comfortable environment, and underdeveloped website section about the campus life. Cooperation with other countries, governments, communities, and universities around the Emirate and country constitutes the opportunities. Threats are as follows: budget cuts, communication problems, and foreign policy issues. Based on the SWOT analysis, the following tactics are chosen: treating students like adults, creating a homely atmosphere, promoting ADU values, and evaluating the level of student satisfaction. Evaluation of the current steps towards fulfilling the mission and meeting objectives identified the need to work more in the spheres of advertising by means of internet, livable and comfortable outdoor environment. The suggested changes and policies, if introduced as a system, can influence the level of student satisfaction with campus facilities.