2024 Campus Communications Survey

Summary and key findings (Spring 2025)

Project overview

In fall 2024, Macalester’s Communications and Marketing team led a campus communications survey for students, faculty, and staff as one piece of a broader review to assess current communication strategies for effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. The survey evaluated the Macalester community’s engagement with various communications channels, with several options for open-ended feedback.

Summary findings

• Most people feel positively about Macalester’s campus communications. Among overall respondents, 60 percent feel positive, 32 percent feel neutral, 8 percent feel negative.
• Survey comments praised campus communications for having good information and being consistent, concise, and clear.
• Mac Daily is the primary and preferred source of information for campus news and information, but it could be shorter and more streamlined. Survey comments offered extensive feedback about making the Mac Daily more concise, more easily skimmed, and more tailored to specific audiences.

Top-rated topics

• Campus events
• General Macalester updates and news
• Policy/procedure updates
• Student stories

Mac Daily

• 72 percent of respondents want the Mac Daily shared every day.
• 66 percent of all respondents read the Mac Daily every day; 20 percent read it every other day.
• 51 percent like the Mac Daily’s current length, while 48 percent feel it is too long. Faculty were more likely to say it’s too long; staff and students were more likely to like the current length. Among respondents who don’t read the Mac Daily often, the top selected reasons why are “I don’t have time” (53 percent) and “It’s too long” (42 percent).
• 95 percent want the Mac Daily sent in the morning.

Standalone emails

• Nearly 75 percent of faculty, staff, and students always read emails from Macalester leadership; 20 percent sometimes read them. 
• Preferred content for standalone emails: policy and procedure updates, campus initiatives, strategic plan updates.

Other insights

• 74 percent of our community does not want to receive text messages from the college about anything other than urgent information.
• 68 percent of students follow Mac on social media (compared to 59 percent of staff and  46 percent of faculty).
• Most popular types of social media content: event recaps and photos; news and stories about students, faculty, staff and alumni; pictures of campus; and general information and updates.

Next steps

Communications and Marketing—in collaboration with the Senior Leadership Team—will assess, prioritize, and update our community on next steps, including Mac Daily adjustments, emails, website updates, and communications planning.