Ryan Meyer has been named the winner of the Henry Internship Competition. He will intern in Washington, D.C. this summer. Congratulations, Ryan!
The Paul B. Henry Foundation is named in honor of the late Paul B. Henry, who served West Michigan in the House of Representatives from 1985-1993
Alena Hontarava is the recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Award for the International Relations Major for the 2011-2012 academic year. She graduated in December with a 3.9 GPA.
Andrea Schedlbauer is the recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Award for the Political Science Major for 2012. She graduated in December with a 3.9 GPA.
Hontarava and Schedlbauer will be recognized at GVSU's Annual Awards Celebration next month. Congratulations!
Political Science major Alexandra Spurlock has been awarded a $10,000 Barbara Padnos International Scholarship. She will use the scholarship to spend the next academic year attending the School of Russian and Asian Studies Russian as a Second Language program in St. Petersburg, Russia.
GVSU's Success Stories features Political Science and Women and Gender Studies major Kirsten Zeiter, who was selected as a delegate for the Commission on the Status of Women meetings held at the United Nations.
Kendall Van Ameyde (Political Science) and Shawn Wooster (International Relations) have been chosen as outstanding students for the 2010-2011 academic year. Both students have a 4.0 GPA. They will be honored at a university event in April. Congratulations!
Kendall Van Ameyde
Shawn Wooster
Matt Blain and Andy Richardson's election survey of GVSU students
During mid-term election week, you may have noticed the frontpage of The Lanthorn featuring Matt and Andy's survey results. Here are a few of their thoughts about the results:
"From October 27 through November 1, we conducted a survey seeking to understand and evaluate various political attitudes, feelings and beliefs of the student population. With the assistance of Professor Whitt Kilburn, this survey (believed to be the first of its kind here at GVSU) sought study a variety of current issues that have or will affect the student body. The survey consisted of 1000 randomly selected students from Grand Valley State. It is important to reference that no weights or predetermined specifics were used to draw the sample and every student was equally likely to be sampled for this project.
77.5% of GVSU students reported being registered to vote, which is high compared to the 71% national average (U.S. Census Bureau). Of the 41 that responded they were not registered to vote, a full 41 also noted that they were too young to vote in 2008. Perhaps when considering age, we will see that GVSU student voting registration is even higher than the national average. Participating in elections is also higher here at GVSU than the national average, 69.5% of students reporting voting in the 2008 election, compared to the 64% reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. When considering the difficulty that most elections have at getting young voters to get to the polls, it seems the 2008 election shows GVSU student’s performing their civic duties.
Somewhat surprisingly for a college campus (as most have the perceived bias of being liberally oriented) the researchers have found that 66 (36.3%) respondents answered that they considered themselves to be Republicans. This was more than both Democrats (58, 31.8%) and Independents (58, 31.8%). The researchers hypothesize that this number has much to do with the conservative leanings of West Michigan in general. Looking at election returns in 2008 for Ottawa County, 61% went for John McCain, while 37% voted for Barack Obama. It is interesting to see that students, even with the perception of being liberal during college years, more closely follow the trends of the greater West Michigan area. We will see that Obama’s approval also follows a similar the trend of partisan alignment.
The average grade given to Obama from Republican students was 1.56 (4 point scale) and 2.897 by Democrat students. Independents rounded out the average grade by awarding Obama a 2.069 GPA. There is an obvious divide among GVSU students on Obama’s performance thus far in the Oval office. The survey also indicated that those who think the country is headed in the wrong direction (as opposed to the right direction) believe so more strongly than students who think we are headed on the right path. Only 4.5% of students responded that they “strongly believe that under Obama, the country is headed in the right direction.” This compared to 17.9% of those who think the country is strongly headed in the wrong direction. This perhaps tells the story of the 2010 election fallout for Democrats. GVSU looks to be representative for the feelings nationwide about the current administration.
The demographic results of the survey are representative of the Grand Valley population (as of 2009-2010), which can be seen at the Office of Institutional Analysis department website. As reported by the OIA, approximately 60% of the student population reports as female with the remaining 40% as male. Of the 183 responses to the question about age (What is your sex?) 61% (112) described themselves as female with 39% (71) as male. Regarding the number of graduate vs. undergraduate students represented in the survey, this was also proportionate to the OIA reported numbers. Nearly 87% of GVSU students are undergraduate students with the remaining 13% at graduate level. Of the 185 responses to the question asking of this information (Are you currently an undergraduate or a graduate student?), 90% (167) said they were undergraduates with 10% (18) reporting as graduate students. These results show that although less than 20% (185 total responses out of 1000) of the sample completed the survey, it is still astoundingly representative of the true population at GVSU and the results from the survey can be used to draw inferences about the entire student body."
For further information on the survey, contact Matt or Andy.
Whitt Kilburn in commentary, Current Affairs, political science, students | Permalink | Comments (0)