About the SERU Consortium

What is the SERU Consortium of research universities?

The SERU Consortium is a long-term collaboration among peer institutions with the purpose of generating longitudinal, benchmarking data on the student experience. Institutions use this data to provide meaningful benchmarks that help gauge changes in student demographics, behavior patterns, and attitudes and to analyze impact of curricular and other institutional reforms.

Membership in the SERU Consortium is open to institutions with an R1: Doctoral Universities – Highest Research Activity designation and equivalent international campuses by invitation and for a multi-year term. In addition to the national and international standing of a university, membership consideration is also based on the following criteria:

The university fully identifies with the SERU Consortium’s mission and goals
The university has the full support of its top academic administrative leadership
The university assigns a designated faculty or staff member as the SERU Consortium Campus Representative

What makes SERU different?

Focusing on understanding the unique student experiences at research-intensive universities
Opportunity to contribute to the design and content of SERU surveys
Customized online surveys that align with institutional branding
A core and module survey design with a variety of optional topical modules
A wildcard module for campus-specific questions

SERU MATTERS OF FACT

SERU was developed by research universities, for research universities.

Since our earliest days, our focus has been to better understand students enrolled in research universities. As a result, we develop surveys that emphasize the types of unique experiences that students encounter only in institutions just like ours. And with a membership model built around being a research university, we cannot imagine that emphasis ever changing.

SERU is member-run and not-for-profit.

All the money we collect from Consortium fees is used to cover project costs. The largest share goes simply to cover the associated costs of multi-institutional survey administration. The rest is put back into SERU, NA Consortium. This includes supporting research and development on our surveys to ensure they meet the needs of our partners and developing deliverables that help our partners get the most out of their participation.

SERU is more than a survey.

While the SERU, NA Consortium is a group of top-tier, research-intensive universities administering a common survey and sharing results for benchmarking benefits, the SERU, NA Consortium is about more than just data collection. SERU partners collaborate on research, share best practices, and work in concert to better understand student experiences.

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