Today Poly Politics turn one year old. A lot of exciting things have happened in the last year, and many more to come. A couple stats:
May the site continue to be relevant and interesting, and lead people to pause and think about what the numbers present. Here's to another great year!
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Poly Politics is almost one year old! Being that a year has past faculty have retired or moved on, new faces have come to campus, and some people have changed their party preference.
So...check back in a few months for updated data on the party break down of Cal Poly faculty, administrators, and others that have a direct impact on the every-day operation and function of the university. 1. Why is there no margin of error?
No margin of error exists because every individual represented in the study was analyzed--the whole population represented (see #4) was analyzed. 2. How did you sample? Is the sample representative? The whole population was analyzed, so the sample is without a doubt representative. The names of each individual sampled can be found on their respective department/division page on this site. Instead of taking a representative sample or individually talking to everyone every name was analyzed in a voter-registration database. 3. What about the people who are not registered to vote? Any individual not registered to vote was marked as "Unknown" and put in that category, and thus are still part of the results of the research. 4. Who was sampled? (Who is represented in this study?) Every individual that has a direct impact on the every-day operation and function of the university was analyzed. This includes faculty, administration, and others (such as auxiliaries, student representatives, etc.) 5. Some names show up on two or more department or division pages, were they counted multiple times? No. Strict measures prevented this from occurring. Each individual that is a part of a department or division was counted toward the overall percentages of that division or department. When it came to doing the overall by-college or area percentages, and the university in sum percentages all duplicates were removed and thus no name was counted more than once. Any other questions please post them as a comment! The distribution by party is quite interesting, especially when broken down by college and major. The College of Liberal Arts holds the recognition as being the college with the greatest number of Democrats, and the Smallest number of Republicans, tallying in at 50% and 8.86% respectively. The College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Sciences holds the recognition as having the greatest percentage of Republicans among all of the colleges (28.92%), and is also distinguished in that it has the most even proportions among parties of all the colleges (28.92% D, 28.92% R, 18.67% NP, 22.29% Unk.). When it comes to being most neutral, the College of Engineering tops the list with its 21.26% stronghold of individuals registered with no party affiliation.
Majors/Departments are a whole different story. Some special distinctions:
Hundreds of hours, and a few months later, that which I thought at one point to be a 'neat idea' but not really attainable has finally gone live. I'm cuttin' it close too. With the election being only five days away there couldn't have been a better time for this information to become available. My hope is that this information will provide a greater insight to an aspect of Cal Poly, SLO that is often considered a 'taboo' topic, and will in turn generate a lively and civil campus discussion. Maybe it will bring those affiliated with Cal Poly as students, faculty, or administration to pause and think about what the numbers present--especially what they may present when analyzed longitudinally. Let the numbers speak for themselves! -- N8
Often times university faculty and administration can be quite mysterious and difficult to understand. With misconceptions, rumors, and sometimes a large disconnect--accompanied by a lack of communication between the different groups that make up a university--there is often much left to be discovered, and much more desired to be understood. This research and data acquisition was aimed to help bring light to at least one portion of the make-up of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Let the numbers speak for themselves.
In this age of Inclusive Excellence Committees, a strong emphasis on diversity, and a push toward tolerance for all issues of racial, ethnic, gender, and other static status-based forms of diversity often take to the forefront and are the primary emphasis of "forward-thinking" "inclusive" programs. Though these elements of diversity are critical to our society, I believe there is another that is frequently neglected, overlooked, and disregarded--namely Intellectual Diversity. I believe this is the greatest and most pristine form of diversity society can ever have, and without it society cannot advance, grow, and will instead move away from that which generations of individuals have fought (literally and figuratively) to protect and enhance. Universities were and often promote the fact that they are a diverse marketplace of ideas where any and all can fit in and find their niche, but the reality being faced on many campuses (that organizations like F.I.R.E and others are finding) is that Universities often end up being diverse and truly all-inclusive only when it is to their benefit and advantage. One surefire way I wanted to look into how "diverse" Cal Poly is on an intellectual basis is through party affiliation. Party affiliation often (*NOT always, but often) reflects a certain set of beliefs and values that an individual holds, as reflected through the values, principles, and beliefs of the party the individual ties themselves too. Though in our modern age many individuals are turning away form being tied to a party, or often choose between the "lesser of two evils" and don't entirely align with the party they register with, being registered under a certain political party umbrella reflects an adherence and commitment to at least a majority of the ideas championed by the party one is aligned with. A few questions I pondered through the process:
Though the data acquisition and raw numbers reflected on this site will not answer directly these questions (correlation does not lead to causation), they are still quite interesting to consider. Hopefully this will generate a lively and civil campus discussion on a topic that quite often is disregarded and ignored. -- N8 Honeycutt August, 2012 |
Blog serves as a forum to discuss findings, trends, and implications, as well as to post about updates to the site and/or data.
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