Friday, November 19, 2010
Behavior Analysis Poll
We are so close to getting the email list from Jehnifer (she accidently sent an email w/o the list today, so we're counting on her sending the list soon). This poll asks questions regarding Behavior Intention, Subjective Norms, Values, and Barriers. Hope its gold!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Poll
Status update on the Poll:
We wrote the poll questions 2 and 1/2 weeks ago. We've always intended to get a broad sample of campus students and faculty. We followed avenues to send out a campus wide email. We knew it was a long shot, but we wanted to try. This is how that went:
1. We sent an email to the Email help desk asking about the possibility.
2. A few days go by with no response. We call the help desk and get a response: they would be happy to help us send out a global email if we get permission form the provost.
3. We call the operator and ask for the Provost (i figured a call would be more direct and save time since the time hang up with the help desk). The office of the president picks up; she gives me specific instructions to email Carol Peplow in the Provost's office. Tough luck on talking in person; I email her.
4. A week goes by. I gave her too much time, but I figured she was busy being the Provost's office and all.
5. I call her at the beginning of this week - Monday - asking about the status of my note. She didn't recall the note and asked me to resend the email (which i did while on the phone with her). She explained it would be hard to get permission for that type of email but that she would ask the Provost anyway. I explained the value of the subject to the University and she agreed with seeming sincerity. I asked her - since I had her on the phone - what plan B would be (the help desk explained getting approval from each department separately would be a possibility, but obviously time consuming). She said that she would be happy to help me with that if plan A falls thru and she told me she would get back to me by the end of the day. And so I left it with her like that. The email that I sent her while on the phone had a sentence at the beginning reading "please confirm receipt..."
6. No confirmation and no call back. And now Tuesday's over. We're frustrated with the University and its abuse of its self-proclaimed power. (I'm paying you - and you, Provost, are paid to represent me!!!)
7. Alas, we're moving on. For the sake of time we will send our poll out to AIAS students. It is a list of 200 students and although they are all design students (bad) they range in all years of study (good). It will be a decently sized, slightly skewed sample of students. But its a start. It goes out tonight.
8. We'll keep going down the path with Provost.
We wrote the poll questions 2 and 1/2 weeks ago. We've always intended to get a broad sample of campus students and faculty. We followed avenues to send out a campus wide email. We knew it was a long shot, but we wanted to try. This is how that went:
1. We sent an email to the Email help desk asking about the possibility.
2. A few days go by with no response. We call the help desk and get a response: they would be happy to help us send out a global email if we get permission form the provost.
3. We call the operator and ask for the Provost (i figured a call would be more direct and save time since the time hang up with the help desk). The office of the president picks up; she gives me specific instructions to email Carol Peplow in the Provost's office. Tough luck on talking in person; I email her.
4. A week goes by. I gave her too much time, but I figured she was busy being the Provost's office and all.
5. I call her at the beginning of this week - Monday - asking about the status of my note. She didn't recall the note and asked me to resend the email (which i did while on the phone with her). She explained it would be hard to get permission for that type of email but that she would ask the Provost anyway. I explained the value of the subject to the University and she agreed with seeming sincerity. I asked her - since I had her on the phone - what plan B would be (the help desk explained getting approval from each department separately would be a possibility, but obviously time consuming). She said that she would be happy to help me with that if plan A falls thru and she told me she would get back to me by the end of the day. And so I left it with her like that. The email that I sent her while on the phone had a sentence at the beginning reading "please confirm receipt..."
6. No confirmation and no call back. And now Tuesday's over. We're frustrated with the University and its abuse of its self-proclaimed power. (I'm paying you - and you, Provost, are paid to represent me!!!)
7. Alas, we're moving on. For the sake of time we will send our poll out to AIAS students. It is a list of 200 students and although they are all design students (bad) they range in all years of study (good). It will be a decently sized, slightly skewed sample of students. But its a start. It goes out tonight.
8. We'll keep going down the path with Provost.
Meeting with Jehnifer Niklas
Just met with Jehnifer. Smart girl doing some similar research!!!
Good news/bad news.
Bad news first: Jehnifer is a grad student/asu employee who is running the poly tech garden and having a hard time fostering community. A community garden - even out in the open as hers is - doesn't necessary equal community. She says that many people are interested and she has good showings at her events, but there are still many people who participate in the garden on an individual level. There are community tasks that some folks just ignore.
Creating community, she says, is easier said then done. She says that she's organized many activities to get people together, but they only go so far. She also explained from experience that she thought if she could get the energy started, it would motivate itself - that the community would influence its own sustainability. However, in reality, when she puts less into as the leader she notices the same slowing effect in her gardeners. Slowly the community garden has had to shift to a hierarchical system to make sure people are held accountable. I got her to agree that with roles and a hierarchy, in many ways the community has become a business. Not so exciting to hear. The project has had "peaks and valleys" and its certainly challenging she says.
Good news: In the hypothetical situation where we can get President Crow to agree that a visible Tempe community garden is a marketable, viable project, she would agree to take a full time position running the Tempe garden. Hmmm.... I've got some infrastructure for my argument.
Other good news: She has an email list of 60 people that are a part of her garden. 15 or so she says actually participate in the garden, the others are some that show interest or involved themselves at some point and just stopped. She has agreed to let me reach out to these people. It seems like the perfect sample to test barriers!!! I just wish we could get a psychologist (Susan still hasn't emailed - even after Aleks sent her an email personally....ek.)
Other interesting info: She asked to keep it off the record, but the housing department at the poly tech campus she says has been the most disagreeable entity. This is unfortunate for a few reasons: 1, the garden is on housing property, 2 the garden is surrounded by housing, and 3, there is a great opportunity to piggyback off the community that a dorm creates...each could reinforce the other. But alas, she says thats unlikely.
Also, she suggested I get in touch with Bo Dromiack - an ASU Alum and an architect at RSP Architects. She says he's an activist on campus for similar goals.
Good news/bad news.
Bad news first: Jehnifer is a grad student/asu employee who is running the poly tech garden and having a hard time fostering community. A community garden - even out in the open as hers is - doesn't necessary equal community. She says that many people are interested and she has good showings at her events, but there are still many people who participate in the garden on an individual level. There are community tasks that some folks just ignore.
Creating community, she says, is easier said then done. She says that she's organized many activities to get people together, but they only go so far. She also explained from experience that she thought if she could get the energy started, it would motivate itself - that the community would influence its own sustainability. However, in reality, when she puts less into as the leader she notices the same slowing effect in her gardeners. Slowly the community garden has had to shift to a hierarchical system to make sure people are held accountable. I got her to agree that with roles and a hierarchy, in many ways the community has become a business. Not so exciting to hear. The project has had "peaks and valleys" and its certainly challenging she says.
Good news: In the hypothetical situation where we can get President Crow to agree that a visible Tempe community garden is a marketable, viable project, she would agree to take a full time position running the Tempe garden. Hmmm.... I've got some infrastructure for my argument.
Other good news: She has an email list of 60 people that are a part of her garden. 15 or so she says actually participate in the garden, the others are some that show interest or involved themselves at some point and just stopped. She has agreed to let me reach out to these people. It seems like the perfect sample to test barriers!!! I just wish we could get a psychologist (Susan still hasn't emailed - even after Aleks sent her an email personally....ek.)
Other interesting info: She asked to keep it off the record, but the housing department at the poly tech campus she says has been the most disagreeable entity. This is unfortunate for a few reasons: 1, the garden is on housing property, 2 the garden is surrounded by housing, and 3, there is a great opportunity to piggyback off the community that a dorm creates...each could reinforce the other. But alas, she says thats unlikely.
Also, she suggested I get in touch with Bo Dromiack - an ASU Alum and an architect at RSP Architects. She says he's an activist on campus for similar goals.
More Aggravation
Jehnifer blew me off. I sent her a nice reminder email yesterday...no response and no show. I'm hoping we just missed each other. Details to follow.
Monday, November 15, 2010
ASU Land Ownership
Ellen helped us with siting. Since we now know acquiring land will be a huge up-hill battle, Ellen and I worked out some realistic potential sites. She explained that our campus is extremely small and dense compared to most urban campuses; most of the landscape is already multi-programed. There were 3 major suggestions she had though:
1. NW corner of site - its currently lot 16, where I park my car everyday. In the master plan, see the post below, that is to be a new build project. I can say too, from experience, that this will be an extremely important project...its the last major open space available for construction in the inner campus. Also, it marks as the gateway to the campus from Mill and University - arguable the most populous entry (circled in green).
2. There is small plot along University at the NE side of campus. She explained that the University is trying to revision all of University ave and that one of the lots in question is a collection basin - a good spot for growing (circled in green).
3. The last suggestion she had was across University in general. She said there isn't a lot of land there, but they are planning to revision the whole area directly across University - to the North. This seems the hardest to control and its not on the main campus, so at first glance its our last option.
Survey
I called Carol Peplow at the Provost's office today to follow up on the email I sent her last week. (I hadn't heard from her). She didnt' recall my email, so she had me send it again.
She explained that mass emails are unusal (was sort of expecting that), but that she would certainly run it by the provost. I tried to convince her that the poll is easy and it regards sustainability - a subject the university is trying to market. She agree that that might give us a chance.
I asked her too, though, since she sounded negative about the whole thing what the alternatives were...she told me she would help me with that if this first pass by the Provost fails. She hopes to get back to me by the end of the day.
Kiesha and I are holding in our back pocket access to send the poll out to all graduate students. We're hopeing to get a bigger sample that that, but if its not obvious, K and I DID NOT want to have not sent this poll out this late. We jsut keep getting closer to getting it to large audience that we keep holding out. This will be our last attempt though. If I can't get a yes today or tomorrow, we'll send it out to the graduate student list.
Sigh. Real is hard.
She explained that mass emails are unusal (was sort of expecting that), but that she would certainly run it by the provost. I tried to convince her that the poll is easy and it regards sustainability - a subject the university is trying to market. She agree that that might give us a chance.
I asked her too, though, since she sounded negative about the whole thing what the alternatives were...she told me she would help me with that if this first pass by the Provost fails. She hopes to get back to me by the end of the day.
Kiesha and I are holding in our back pocket access to send the poll out to all graduate students. We're hopeing to get a bigger sample that that, but if its not obvious, K and I DID NOT want to have not sent this poll out this late. We jsut keep getting closer to getting it to large audience that we keep holding out. This will be our last attempt though. If I can't get a yes today or tomorrow, we'll send it out to the graduate student list.
Sigh. Real is hard.
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