SERU News and Links

The Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium successfully hosted its 2024 Symposium, "Leveraging Data for Student Engagement and Wellbeing in Undergraduate and Graduate Education," on September 17-18 at the University of Toronto, Canada.

We are pleased to announce that CSHE is recruiting for a new Assistant Director for our SERU program! This is a full-time, two-year contract position that is eligible for renewal based on continued funds. The position is also eligible for UC benefits as well as remote work within the United States. 

On August 28, 2023, CSHE Faculty Affiliate and SERU Principal Researcher Steven Brint published a new article entitled "The Political Machine behind the War on Academic Freedom" at the Chronicle of Higher Education. 

In this article, CSHE's Research Associate Jenae Cohn reviewed a keynote panel discussion about artificial intelligence at the 2023 Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium Symposium. Cohn specifically focused on four aspects: defining AI, how AI may change higher education jobs, academic disciplines in response to AI, and ethical considerations. 

April 22, 2022 – This week marks the 20th anniversary of the pilot launch of the UC Undergraduate Experience Survey (UCUES), the first survey of all undergraduates at the University of California. UCUES was initiated as part of CSHE’s Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) project.

The Student Experience in the Research University (SERU), a Consortium of Research Universities at the University of California, Berkeley, developed the SERU COVID-19 survey to analyse and understand the impact of the pandemic on the student experience.

Following the initiative, the Research Centre for Comparative and Global Education, under the aegis of the IIHEd, JGU, sought to conduct the same survey in India in collaboration with the Association of Indian Universities (AIU).

A survey published by UC Berkeley’s Student Experience in the Research University, or SERU, Consortium took a closer look at how the COVID-19 pandemic may hinder graduate and professional students from completing their degrees on time.

This study examined whether program climate factors, stressors, demographic, and institutional variables were associated with doctoral students’ clinically significant generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder symptoms. Participants: This study examined doctoral students’ responses from the gradSERU survey, which was administered at five U.S. public research universities in 2017–2018 (n = 2,582). Methods: This study utilized confirmatory factor analysis and binary logistic regression.

A bipartisan group of three senators on Wednesday asked the Government Accountability Office to examine whether colleges and universities are doing enough to make sure disabled students have the same access to learning during the coronavirus pandemic as others.

Online learning will become a new normal in higher education for the foreseeable future. Not because faculty find emergency remote instruction gratifying or because students enjoy it so much they won’t return to campus. Online learning will flourish because universities will need it to stay afloat during a long and painful recession.

Quality assurance in higher education often emphasises the importance of lowering student attrition. The first year of study is a crucial period for mitigating risks of attrition as this is the time when students develop a sense of belonging, and academic and personal connections. This study explores the long-term effects of the first-year student experience on attrition during their four years of study using two longitudinal datasets from a highly selective Russian university.

Students of color and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds have been more likely to suffer hardships as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and are in need of support from their colleges, a new survey of students at large, public research institutions found.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the economy and disrupted higher education, many students faced food and housing insecurity. And according to a new survey, the situation has only become more acute in the last several months, with a higher rate of students experiencing food insecurity.

More than 1 in 5 college students faced food insecurity in the early months of the ongoing pandemic, according to the survey from the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium.

Many student services professionals at post-secondary institutions may have familiarity with the unique needs in supporting international students' career development. Now in this time where our institutions are navigating changes due to COVID-19, it is important to find ways of how to facilitate international student career development in the virtual space.

With surveys showing that the pandemic is worsening anxiety and depression among college students, campus counseling centers across California are bracing for an expected sharp rise in the numbers of students seeking mental health services.

Like most college and university classes, psychological therapy sessions switched to online — or on telephone — in March. The campuses say they will try their best to advertise, expand and improve those virtual services and continue that way until it is safe to restore in-person meetings.

Tired. Tired of not being able to be with friends, eat at our favorite restaurants, see a movie in the theater, or go to a concert. Physical distancing has been really hard. Add to that the impact of COVID-19 on our schools, jobs and important ritual such as weddings, graduations and funerals, and it’s no surprise that our collective mental health is being negatively impacted.

Depression and anxiety are rising during COVID, particularly among low-income students, students of color, women, LGBTQ+ students and students who are caregivers.

Mental health problems were also more prevalent among students who struggled with the shift to online and distance learning, according to a mental health survey of 45,0000 students conducted in May-July 2020 at nine public research universities.

About one-third of undergraduate, graduate and professional school students screened during the summer were found to have depression or anxiety, or both, which is a higher rate than seen in years past, according to a new report by the Student Experience in the Research University, or SERU, Consortium.

The ongoing pandemic caused by the continued prevalence and spread of the novel coronavirus has been especially trying for first-generation college students, with a new survey finding that the cohort was especially vulnerable to experiencing financial hardships, food and housing insecurity, mental health disorders, and obstacles to transitioning to online courses.

Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium is administering a special survey on the impact of COVID-19 on student experience at 10 US public research universities. The SERU COVID-19 Survey assesses 5 areas of the student experience for both undergraduates and graduate students impacted by the pandemic and campus closures: (1) the transition to remote instruction, (2) the financial impact of COVID-19 on students, (3) student health and wellbeing, (4) belonging and engagement, and (5) future plans.

The Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) is delighted to announce that Dr. Igor Chirikov has been appointed as the Center’s Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium Director and Senior Researcher. His first day at UC Berkeley will be December 10, 2018.

With funding support from the Volkswagen Foundation, the first gradSERU Research Symposium was held on October 4-5, 2018 in Hannover, Germany.

In an environment of declining public funding and rising tuition rates, many public universities in the US are moving toward a “progressive tuition model” that attempts to invest approximately one-third of tuition income into institutional financial aid for lower-income and middle-class students. The objective is to mitigate the cost of rising tuition and keep college affordable. But is this model as currently formulated working?

December 12, 2016 – CSHE is pleased to announce that at least eight major research universities will collaborate in the administration of the new SERU Graduate Student Survey (gradSERU) in 2017.

February 8, 2016 - Today, the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium begins administration of a revised version of its undergraduate student survey at 19 of its 24 member campuses in the United States. The 2016 survey introduces a framework that explicitly recognizes the multiple purposes and contexts of undergraduate education.