
By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
Every two years, Barton Community College sends out a PACE survey to be completed by employees. PACE stands for Personal Assessment of the College Environment. The survey gives college administration a sense of the culture on campus, things that are going well and areas to improve.
On a scale of up to 5.0, with five being the best score, Barton received an overall mean score of the PACE survey of 4.189.
Dr. Marcus Garstecki said he was pleased to see the highest rated question was that employees feel their job is relevant to the institution’s mission.
"Obviously, when we hire new staff and faculty, we want them to understand the mission of Barton and what we're here to do day in and day out," said Garstecki. "There's a strong connection there which is a good sign."

Administered to 536 employees at Barton, 244 or 45.5% completed and returned the survey.
"The thing that stood out to me the most when I looked at this list is how many times the word students shows up in this," said Garstecki. "Our mission is to serve students and preparing them for the workforce. We want to make sure they have a great experience in the classroom."
The number one question for the most improvement was “I am able to appropriately influence the direction of the institution” scoring a 3.612.
