The Office of Institutional Research at Merit University is keyed to the institution’s 10-year strategic planning objectives by supplying faculty, administration, staff, and various external stakeholders with consultations, statistics, and analyses derived from student, alumni, and community surveys, as well as from both live operational and archival data sources. These resources aim to reflect, support, enhance, and inform processes involving organizational planning and decision-making, policy development, and ongoing assessments of institutional effectiveness and learning outcomes. Internal research support is available for academic departments, faculty committees, and administrative offices, while external reporting involves sharing relevant data with federal and state agencies, accrediting bodies, and various MU handbooks.
The director of institutional research, who reports directly to the Dean of Academic Affairs, leads these efforts to promote institutional effectiveness by:
These initiatives are directed by a full-time Director of Institutional Research. Under the director’s leadership, MU maintains a data warehouse and publishes data in areas such as admissions, enrollment, degrees awarded, staffing, financial aid, finance, and student success.
Merit University produces a range of dashboards, data tables, and survey results that supply essential information to both internal and external audiences. Beyond these regular data reports, the Director of Institutional Research also addresses ad hoc requests for data and analyses. For instance, in response to budget reductions stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, the institutional research office has created reports and tools to forecast enrollment for specific student subpopulations and model tuition revenue based on those projections and evaluate and prioritize academic programs according to their fit with the mission, size, growth potential, and student/employer demand.
The institutional research office continues to transition from producing static reports—which simply provide data to individuals—to developing interactive tools and dashboards that empower users to efficiently access the specific data they require. The appointment of the Director of Institutional Research underscores the institution’s commitment to this evolution.