ASEC Poll Response Analysis Process

Description of ASEC Poll Response Analysis Process
Dated July 7, 2004

One hundred and three (103) responses to the ASEC Poll were received by and read on July 6, 2004. They were counted and read by Susan Eisner, Kay Fowler, George Gongpu, Susan Hangen, Ellen Kaiden, and Babs Varano. The quantitative results were as follows:

ìI generally support the recommendations in the ASEC 5/17 Final Reportî :

50 Yes (49%)

39 No (38%)

14 abstentions (13%)

Twenty-six of the ballots provided additional narrative comments.

The group of six (Susan, Kay, George, Susan, Ellen, and Babs) then read all the comments and collectively identified categories for common themes among the narratives. Each set of comments was then carefully codified according to these various themes and then doublechecked for general agreement of all the readers. The common themes which we identified are presented below with a brief description of the kinds of comments we felt belonged in each one. Note: our analysis of where each comment fell represents our best collective, subjective view. There is unquestionably slippage and ambiguity about the assignment of any one comment to a particular category. Feel free to visit the scanned original comments to make your own assessment of where comments belong as well as to see them in their original context.

Special thanks are due to this conscientious group who read, analyzed, and summarized the comments over the course of two very full days. We also wish to specially thank Babs Varano, Laura Plessner, and Sue Zhang for their extensive help in inputing and scanning the raw data working well past regular hours to do so! Finally, as always Barbara Trottere has been a gem in handling all the distribution and collection of the ballots, etc.

Comments have been broken apart according to key themes and organized under the following headings:

I. Overall Comments on General Concept

* overall concept and general comments about whether we should restructure

II. Curricular Concerns

* integrity of majors/aggregated programs; delivering general education; interdisciplinarity

III. Administrative Structure

* Number of schools; the faculty-administrator ratio; allocation of financial resources; how administrative bodies should be organized

IV. Convening Groups/îProgramsî

* role of conveners; size, membership and function of convening groups.

V. Faculty Equity

* accountability; responsibilities

VI. Deans

* role, selection and terms of

VII. Teacher Education/International Education/Graduate Programs

* on whether these programs should be separate entities

VIII. ASEC Report Style and Process

* responses to the report (NOTE WE DIDN'T ADD IN HERE THE VERY MANY THANKS AND CONGRATULATIONS TO THE COMMITTEE BUT WE DO WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THEM HERE IN THE SUMMARY!)

IX. Miscellaneous