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Some of you may have seen news reports about the arrest of a UMR student on campus early Tuesday morning, Feb. 27, after the student allegedly claimed to have a bomb and anthrax. Classes are now back in session, after investigators determined that the threat was a hoax. For the latest information on this situation, please visit http://news.mst.edu.
I'm out of town for a couple of days, with limited computer time. So if you don't see your comment, please be patient. I'll get to it as soon as I can. Thanks for your patience.
While we're on the subject of comments, let me repeat the request from this blog's inaugural posting: Please "keep your comments focused on the topic, cordial and respectful in tone, and as brief as possible." I've been very hands-off in terms of editing comments, but a few of them have strayed from the topic of the name change, and a few are little more than lengthy jeremiads.
I'm going to start scrutinizing the comments more closely. But if you stay on topic, cordial in tone and brief, your posts should have no trouble getting through untouched.
The long-awaited results of UMR's various surveys of alumni, students, faculty and staff are now available. Read on for the blog version (minus the tables, pie charts and lone footnote), or download the full report (MS Word file) for a more graphical presentation.
February 21, 2007
Summary
Background
Survey results: alumni
Survey results: current students
Survey results: faculty and staff
Conclusions
Since announcing the name change discussion (Oct. 9, 2006), UMR has surveyed alumni, current students (undergraduate and graduate), faculty, and staff. Based on these survey results:
In his State of the University address on Monday, Oct. 9, 2006, UMR Chancellor John F. Carney III proposed a universitywide conversation about the possibility of changing the university’s name to something that better reflects the university’s mission and focus as a technological research university. To gather input about the name change from various constituents of the university, Chancellor Carney commissioned surveys of several of those groups, including alumni, students, faculty and staff, prospective students, community leaders, corporate recruiters and high school guidance counselors. Surveys of alumni, current students, and faculty and staff were conducted in-house by UMR staff. Surveys of the other groups listed are being conducted by an educational marketing research firm, SimpsonScarborough.
In order to reach the largest alumni audience possible, UMR decided to include a mail-in/fax-in survey in the Winter 2006 issue of its quarterly alumni magazine, UMR Magazine, which was sent to alumni in early December 2006. Similar surveys were delivered electronically to current students, faculty and staff in January and February 2007. Each survey offered respondents a list of six possible name choices (including the current name) and an “other” category, and asked, “What name would best describe this university?” The goal of these surveys was to determine these audiences’ views of the current name as well as their views of other possible names.
The name choices provided were as follows:
As of Jan. 10, 2007, 955 alumni responded to the UMR Magazine survey, giving the survey a 2.2 percent response rate from the 43,000 alumni who receive the magazine. Of those respondents:
Approximately 50 other survey forms have arrived since Jan. 10. Those results have not yet been compiled.
Survey results: current students (undergraduate and graduate)
An online survey of current students was conducted from Jan. 22-29, 2007. Both undergraduate students and graduate students were surveyed. Both surveys attracted a large response rate, with 2,415 undergraduates (or 57 percent of 4,234) and 601 graduate students (45.7 percent out of 1,315) responding.
An online survey of faculty was conducted from Jan. 22-29, 2007, during the same time period as the survey of students. The survey received a total of 356 responses. Of those respondents, a solid majority said a name other than UMR best describes the university.
Survey results indicate that a solid majority of the alumni, faculty and staff who responded to the surveys perceive a need for the University of Missouri-Rolla to consider a name change. The results of the student surveys and younger alumni respondents indicate a slight preference in favor of the status quo.
In addition, across all surveys, there is no clear consensus on which of the suggested names best describes UMR.
The results of the alumni name change survey have generated quite a bit of discussion, but that isn't the only constituent group UMR has surveyed on this issue. In January and this month, we've surveyed students, faculty and staff to gauge their opinions about the proposal. In the coming weeks, a higher ed marketing consultant will survey prospective students, corporate recruiters, high school counselors and teachers, and local and state opinion leaders. Our hope is that from all these surveys -- as well as all the input from letters, emails, phone calls, etc. -- a mosaic of opinion will emerge to help us better determine what course of action to take.
Here's a summary of all survey results (from alumni, students, faculty and staff) thus far:
A majority of alumni, faculty, staff and graduate students believe a name other than UMR would best describe the university.
In all of the surveys, of those who said a name other than UMR would best describe the university, there is no consensus on what the best name should be.
We'll share more detail as we go along, but thought that might give you folks something to mull over during the weekend.
I was hoping for more response to the post, Calling 'tech' support, in which I invited readers to rank a list of university names (which were listed alphabetically) in terms of their reputation as a technological research university. Only one brave soul accepted the challenge, and figured out the joke, while another commenter asked why the University of California-Berkeley wasn't on the list. (The reason: Because UC-Berkeley doesn't meet the criteria of a technological research university.)
Anyway, more than a week has passed since that post, and I doubt we'll get any further comment about it, so I guess it's time to 'fess up that the names listed are not the actual names of the technological research universities, but are just one blogger's conjecture of what the nomenclature for these institutions might be if they followed the same naming approach as the University of Missouri.
The list (with each campus' true identity in parentheses) is as follows:
Andy Warhol once quipped: "Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." The virtual world corollary to that is:"In the blogosphere, everyone will be famous to 15 people." I'm not sure which applies in this case, but I'm pleased to report that this blog has been recognized by one of the better blogs in higher education: Karine Joly's college web editor website.
In Joly's post -- Got a (controversial) change in the plans at your institution? A blog might be the perfect communication channel. -- she writes:
In higher education, the announcement of any proposed change (be it a website or logo redesign, a new strategic plan or even worse a change in the name of the institution) will result in complaints, fights, protests and worst case scenario: status quo.She then refers to this blog and explains why openness is important to this type of communication: "Obviously, comments -- mainly from alums at the time of this writing -- are open as the reverse would defeat the whole purpose of the blog, i.e. get conversations going about the project."That’s why the communication around the decision-making process is so critical. It’s very important to offer the proper communication channels to allow people to voice their concerns or their praises.
Joly seems to see value in this type of blog. Regardless of whether you agree with the approach UMR is taking with this name change discussion, I hope you see some value to this blogging effort, too. (And I hope there's more than 15 of you out there reading.)
A few days ago, "Musical_Alum" (more about pseudonyms in a later post) asked:
Could you include a blog entry explaining why this must be done so quickly?And:
Have any marketing consultants provided their services?I'll try to address both questions with this post. It's a bit long-winded. I hope you'll bear with me.
Regarding the pace at which the UMR administration is moving forward on this subject: It's true that universities are typically slow to change, especially in comparison to the hectic pace of change in many corporate environments. So it may appear as though things are moving quite rapidly regarding this name change.
But the speed in which this conversation is moving forward is relative. For some of us, the idea of changing this campus's name has been a recurring topic of discussion for years. It's been a topic that's cropped up periodically throughout my 16-year career at UMR, and I suspect ever since we switched from the University of Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy to the University of Missouri at Rolla in 1964. (Soon after that name change, the "at" was replaced with a hyphen and we became the University of Missouri-Rolla.)
So, this discussion has been years in the making.
But, yes, this process has moved along quickly, when measured in "university time" (similar to geologic time). That is not necessarily a bad thing, though. All along this fast track, the university administration has worked hard to communicate with as many constituents as possible, as often as possible, and in as many venues as possible. With 43,000 alumni out there, it's impossible to get in touch with everyone, and we're limited by financial and staffing constraints. (We don't have the budget to pull off the awareness campaign of, say, Singular/the new AT&T, for instance.) But we've done a pretty good job of reaching many alumni in a reasonably efficient and cost-effective manner.
It's been four months since Chancellor John F. Carney III first publicly suggested that the campus community discuss the merits of a name change. From that point forward, several units of the university have worked together to inform as many of our constituents as possible, as quickly as possible. We've spent a lot of time communicating with alumni, students, faculty and staff, the public, etc., in a variety of ways. Chancellor Carney has held forums on campus, with local alumni groups and with community groups. Several of us worked with him to craft a position paper and distribute it as widely as possible. At the same time, we worked on a condensed version of that paper to include in the winter 2006 issue of the alumni magazine, which was sent out in early December -- earlier than usual. That issue also included the mail-in survey we've been discussing on this blog. Starting in January and continuing through this month, we've been surveying current students, faculty and staff about the name change. (I'll share the results of those surveys in this space soon.) Most recently, we decided to create this blog to share information and provide an avenue for feedback.
As for the why aspect of Musical_Alum's question, the answer boils down to timing. Look at the demographics of high school graduates: we're about to face a dramatic decline in the number of prospective students from Missouri and the Midwest, where we're best known. (Best known by prospective students and their families, that is. I'm not talking about employers here; that's a separate issue and no one at UMR is arguing that we're not well known by employers in specific industries). Say we're trying to recruit a prospective student from Wisconsin, where the hyphenated University of Wisconsin campuses are perceived as "branch" campuses or feeder schools for the main campus in Madison. Say that recruit receives a mailer from some hyphenated university in Missouri. What is that prospect's perception of the school? A feeder school. A branch campus. Not "big time." But say that prospect receives a mailer from "Missouri Polytechnic University" (to choose a possible name out of the hat). What is the perception there? A technology campus!
Of course, I'm speculating about how some prospect in Wisconsin might perceive a name like Missouri Polytechnic. Which brings us to Musical_Alum's second question: Have we sought professional help from marketing firms to assist with the research?
We have. An educational marketing firm has been hired to survey prospective students, corporate recruiters, community and business leaders, and high school counselors. That work begins soon.
Dear readers: Bring out the torches and pitchforks, for I have committed what surely is a cardinal sin in the eyes of any technological research university graduate, student or faculty member, regardless of the institution's name.
In a previous post about alumni response to our name change survey, I wrote that "112" of our alumni responded. The actual number is 995 (prior to a mid-January cutoff date, plus more since then). I then compounded my error by claiming that amounted to a 2.5 percent response rate. Surprisingly, no readers called me on my faulty math. But a fellow staff member did, so I double checked it and corrected the errors in the original post. The corrected version is posted again, below, using only the numbers from the pre-mid-January results. We haven't had time to figure in the other results yet, but we're keeping tabs.
As they say in the news business, "We regret the error." But regret just doesn't convey my remorse. I really, really, really regret the error. - Andrew Careaga
In the winter 2006 issue of UMR Magazine, alumni were surveyed about the proposed name change, and the results of that survey may come as a surprise to those who claim the majority of alumni are opposed to the name change. We'll publish more information about the survey in the spring issue of UMR Magazine. I didn't want to scoop the magazine, but this is the blogosphere, and some of the comments we've received imply a groundswell of opposition to the name change. So to set the record straight, I have no choice but to scoop the mag.
And here's that scoop:
More than 70 percent of alumni responding to the survey said they favored changing UMR's name to something more descriptive of our mission.
That's right: more than 70 percent (70.1 percent, to be exact).
A note about the survey itself and the results: The survey garnered a 2.5 2.2 percent response rate (112 955 of the 43,000 alumni). That may sound low, but it beats the typical response rate of 1-2 percent for mail surveys. We would likely have received a higher response rate by conducting an online survey, but we have the email addresses of only about 19,000 or our 43,000 alumni, so we would have missed a large segment of the population. Publishing the survey in the magazine was the most cost-effective means of reaching as many alumni as possible.
The survey was accompanied by an article, which summarized the case for the name change.
We'll share more information about this survey in the spring issue of the alumni magazine. This blog will also carry the results from student, faculty and staff surveys soon. Keep reading.
A quick question request for all you loyal readers out there:
In the comments form below, rank the following names (listed alphabetically) in terms of their reputation as a technological research university:
This contains corrections to the original post. See the Feb. 7 post for a more detailed explanation.
In the winter 2006 issue of UMR Magazine, alumni were surveyed about the proposed name change, and the results of that survey may come as a surprise to those who claim the majority of alumni are opposed to the name change. We'll publish more information about the survey in the spring issue of UMR Magazine. I didn't want to scoop the magazine, but this is the blogosphere, and some of the comments we've received imply a groundswell of opposition to the name change. So to set the record straight, I have no choice but to scoop the mag.
And here's that scoop:
More than 70 percent of alumni responding to the survey said they favored changing UMR's name to something more descriptive of our mission.
That's right: more than 70 percent (70.1 percent, to be exact).
A note about the survey itself and the results: The survey garnered a 2.5 2.2 percent response rate (112 955 of the 43,000 alumni). That may sound low, but it beats the typical response rate of 1-2 percent for mail surveys. We would likely have received a higher response rate by conducting an online survey, but we have the email addresses of only about 19,000 or our 43,000 alumni, so we would have missed a large segment of the population. Publishing the survey in the magazine was the most cost-effective means of reaching as many alumni as possible.
The survey was accompanied by an article, which summarized the case for the name change.
We'll share more information about this survey in the spring issue of the alumni magazine. This blog will also carry the results from student, faculty and staff surveys soon. Keep reading.
I'm going to be away from the computer for the rest of the week and into the weekend, so apologies in advance for the delay in approving any new comments. I'll review the comments when I return on Saturday evening.
Lots of good discussion going so far. Thanks for entering the fray. To keep the conversation going, I'd welcome your input on some of the recent coverage the name change topic has received from the opinion pages of Missouri newspapers: