Amanda Crouse
News Editor
From April 6 through 10, The Wooster Voice staff collected responses for its biannual approval ratings survey, which asks students to provide anonymous feedback on 28 College departments and five Wooster-specific programs.
This semester, the Academic Resource Center (ARC) and the Center for Belonging & Intercultural Dialogue (CBID) were added to the survey. The survey was also changed to reflect the office of Sexuality and Gender Inclusion’s renaming to Equity and Belonging.
After filling out basic demographic information relating to class year, race, ethnicity and gender identity, respondents were prompted to check one of six boxes (strongly disapprove, disapprove, neutral, approve, strongly approve and no response) next to the name of each department and program. Space was left at the bottom of the survey for students to elaborate on their ratings or express additional thoughts to be shared with representatives from the departments. Below is a breakdown of student response demographics, ratings trends and some of the topics most frequently commented on.
The Voice received a total of 143 approval ratings surveys for spring 2026. This is a 34.7% decrease in student participation from the fall 2025 semester, which tallied 219 responses. The class of 2026 had the highest rate of participation, contributing 39% of responses. The class of 2027 accounted for 30.5% of survey participants, while the classes of 2028 and 2029 accounted for 13.6% and 16.9% of surveys, respectively.
7.6% of respondents indicated their ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino. For race, 78.9% of responses came from white students, 7.8% from Black or African American students, 7% from students of two or more races and 6.3% from Asian students.
In the fall, the proportion of female respondents had dropped from 50.7% to 43.1%. This semester, that number rose again by three percentage points, with female participants accounting for 46.4% of responses. Male participants contributed 36.2% of survey responses, which is a 2% decrease from the fall semester. Nonbinary student responses saw a 4% drop from the fall, totaling 10.1% of respondents for spring 2026 approval ratings. Another 2.9% of survey responses came from students identifying as two or more genders. This semester, 4.3% of students who completed the approval ratings identified their gender as “Other.” A blank space was provided on the survey beside this label so that students could write in their gender identity.
The following six departments received approval ratings of 70% or higher: Center for Advising, Planning, and Experiential Learning (APEX, 81%), The Wooster Voice (89%), Faculty (88%), Libraries (91%), the Writing Center (73%) and Student Engagement (74%). The Writing Center’s spring 2026 rating dropped by about 9 percentage points from fall 2025, while Student Engagement’s rating jumped 12 percentage points. Two academic programs –– Independent Study (80%) and Study Abroad/TREK (71.1%) –– also garnered approval ratings at or above 70%.
Nine departments received approval ratings ranging from 50% to 69%: the Academic Resource Center (ARC, 68%), Equity and Belonging (52%), Knowlton Science Café (64%), MacLeod’s C-Store (64%), Old Main Café (56%), Scot Council (61%), Office of Sustainability (69%), Office of the Registrar (55%) and Office of Residence Life (50%). This is a notable change from the fall 2025 semester, during which Knowlton, Old Main, Scot Council and Residence Life were met with similar percentages of approval and disapproval, preventing them from clearly falling under one category. First Year Seminar (FYS, 62%) and Pathways (57%) were the two academic programs whose ratings placed them in the 50% to 69% approval range.
For spring 2026, five departments had ratings of disapproval that met or exceeded 30% of total ratings: Lowry Dining Center (55%), the Office of the President (84%), The College of Wooster (32%), Campus Safety (43%) and the Financial Aid Office (33%). The Office of the President saw an 18% increase in disapproval since the fall semester and Campus Safety had an 11% increase. The only academic program to receive at least a 30% rate of disapproval was Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL), which totaled 31% disapproval.
The departments with the highest percentages of neutral ratings were International Student Services (ISS, 60%), Religious and Spiritual Life (RSL, 47%) and the Dean of Students Office (49%). Meanwhile, ratings for the departments of Athletics and Financial Aid didn’t strongly lean toward either approval or disapproval.
About 58 students wrote comments on the backs of their surveys to express grievances with specific departments, give praise to staff and faculty and voice general concerns. The most common criticisms regarded the Longbrake Wellness Center’s reduced hours, the College’s recent announcement of fees for course overloading and the Feb. 3 layoffs of 22 staff members. Reduced hours for Knowlton and Old Main were also repeatedly mentioned.
Out of 13 comments about the Wellness Center, eight mentioned its reduction in hours of operation.
“The quality of wellness has decreased since they reduced their hours,” one student wrote. “I know they don’t have the staffing but it is so inconvenient to make an appointment while sick or have to wait for them to open.”
Knowlton and Old Main were mentioned in ten comments, seven of which expressed dissatisfaction with the cafés’ reduced hours of operation introduced in fall 2025. One student wrote: “Cafe hours don’t make sense considering regular class hours. They should extend to 4 p.m.”
25 comments were left about the College’s administration and the Office of the President, 11 of which mentioned President McCall by name. Five comments directly referred to the February 3 layoffs.
“Please spend less money on dorms and more money keeping Wellness open, keeping the Writing Center staffed, keeping APEX staffed,” one comment said. “Also, on a campus this small, all staff are student-facing, Anne McCall.”
Another student wrote: “I’m concerned about students’ ability to discern decisions made by the departments themselves vs the president’s office.”
Multicultural Student Affairs (MSA) was incorrectly included in this year’s survey. MSA, though still listed on the CBID Inside Wooster website, has been absorbed under the office of Equity and Belonging. This will be corrected in next year’s survey.
Thank you to the Voice staff for helping with tabling, and a special thanks to Kiera McGuire ’27, Nwanne Eke ’26, Trent Patton ’26, Victoria Finizio ’27, Anakha Shah ’27, Sarah Buchholtz ’28 and Sara Moore ’27 for their help with data entry.
