AIR Conference

One of the conferences I look forward to most is the Association for Institutional Research annual forum, although I have to say I come away both energized and exhausted! In addition to all the CIRP-related presentations I am either giving or attending, there are colleagues to catch up with and wonderful sessions to attend.

W e will again have a booth staffed with your favorite HERI people, so come by and say hello if you are attending the AIR Forum in Toronto. We’ve put together a flyer that shows that we have 19 presentations given by HERI-affiliated faculty and staff, and another three presentations by colleagues outside HERI who are presenting projects using CIRP data. There are a wide range of topics, from research results to the conceptual framework behind the CIRP surveys to how institutions are using the information they receive to make changes on campuses. Here are some highlights:

“Getting Ready for a Diverse Workforce: Predicting Change in Students’ Pluralistic Orientation Skills During the First College Year.” Sylvia Hurtado, HERI Director, and Linda DeAngelo, CIRP Assistant Director for Research present a paper that uses our CIRP Construct of Pluralistic Orientation. This is a great opportunity to hear how to connect this essential student learning outcome with the experiences measured on the Your First College Year Survey. That session is Tuesday, May 24th; 9:45am-10:25am.

In one of the few studies looking at the academic impact of social network sites, CIRP Research Analyst Jessica Sharkness and I present “Social Networking Sites and College Students: Does Time Spent on Facebook and MySpace Impact Academic Outcomes?” on Tuesday, May 24th; 11:00am-11:40am. I promise you that it will be an eye opener and we’d love your feedback.

If accreditation is your thing, then don’t miss this session with CIRP Assistant Director Laura Palucki Blake and several CIRP users: “Converting Data into Evidence: Institutions Discuss Using CIRP Surveys for Accreditation.”

There are many more presentations that can be found on the flyer we have prepared. In addition, there is a CIRP Users Group lunch on Monday from 11:55 to 1:00 (email us at HERI@ucla.edu if you would like to partake of a lovely Canadian box lunch while we talk about CIRP related topics).

We will be tweeting and posting our thoughts during the forum, and hope you will too. See you in Toronto!