Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1964 [PAGE 1291]

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1246

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[June 17

of curriculum changes in various school or college subjects, and for determining the teaching methods best suited to the presentation of such materials to students. T h e Acting Dean of the Graduate College and the Executive Vice-President and Provost recommend approval of the change in name and expansion in program of the Office of Educational Testing. I concur.

On motion of Mr. Williamson, this recommendation was approved.

ESTABLISHMENT OF A SURVEY RESEARCH LABORATORY (18) The Acting Dean of the Graduate College recommends that a Survey Research Laboratory be established by the University of Illinois as a separate unit of the Graduate College. The functions of the Survey Research Laboratory will be t o : (1) plan, conduct, and process survey operations for University research projects; and, to carry out this function, to create an operating survey organization with facilities for maintaining and interviewing probability samples of the population of the state of Illinois; (2) conduct and promote research in survey methods; (3) provide a means for training undergraduate and graduate students in survey methods; and (4) act as a data repository for survey and other data on the state of Illinois. Such a laboratory will serve to coordinate and facilitate the large number of University projects which currently use survey methods and will promote research on questions which can only be answered through the use of surveys. Its need stems from the growing use of the survey method as a tool of investigation employed in many different areas of the University. Knowledge of the use of this tool and of the associated facilities has become essential if undergraduate and graduate students in most of the social sciences and related applied fields are to receive a well-rounded education. Until now, the University has possessed no central laboratory for maintaining survey operations, for collecting survey data, or for storing research data in a form readily available to faculty members and students. This type of laboratory exists at the Universities of Michigan and Wisconsin, but there is none at present in the state of Illinois. The operations of the Survey Research Laboratory will be conducted by faculty members who hold departmental appointments. Primary administrative responsibility will rest with a Director and an Executive Committee. The Executive Committee will consist of those faculty members directly responsible for the major sections of the Laboratory (sampling, field operations, coding, and data storage), together with additional appointees from the faculties of the various departments of the University of Illinois most dependent upon the facilities of the Laboratory for their research activities. These additional faculty appointees will be named by the Dean of the Graduate College on recommendation of their department heads. The Director will be appointed biennially by the Board of Trustees on recommendation of the President, after nomination by the Dean of the Graduate College with the concurrence of the Executive Committee of the Laboratory. T h e Director of the Laboratory will serve as a member of the Executive Committee. It is intended that the groundwork of the Laboratory will be laid during the forthcoming summer and academic year. During this period, a so-called master sample of the population of Illinois will be developed and field force of interviewers will be established and trained in all areas encompassed by the master sample. During this same period, plans would be completed for a perpetual data repository. Such repository would seek to develop an inventory of data needed in studies carried out by University faculty, and would maintain data relating to the business conditions and welfare of the State of Illinois. A major function of the Laboratory will be to educate graduate and undergraduate students in survey techniques. Students will be given an opportunity to work under general faculty supervision and will be involved closely with the operational phases of a survey project. In addition, graduate students will be able to carry out dissertation projects using the resources of the Survey Research Laboratory. Faculty members will offer departmental courses drawing upon the resources of the Laboratory. It is anticipated that the Survey Research Laboratory will be ready for regular operations by September, 1965.