Carmen Williams, Director of IR, March 7, 2007

The Office of Institutional Research was formed in 1971, reporting to Dr. W. E. Koenker, Vice President of Academic Affairs. The purpose of the office was to support University planning and to provide comprehensive information regarding the institution. Mr. Ralph Kingsbury was the very first full-time Institutional Research staff member. Reports such as Hegis (a faculty salary survey), now called IPEDS, were done through the office. Many of the calculations and data reporting at this time were done manually and without the aid of much technology. Mr. Kingsbury was in the IR office, as Director, until December 1974. He was succeeded by Ms. Mary Martin. Ms. Martin held the IR position for several years beginning in 1975.

Following Ms. Martin, Mr. Richard Balsley was the Director from early 1981 through November 1994. At this time computer technology was changing quite rapidly. All of the data-crunching that the office did became more and more efficient with the ever-increasing technology-improved computers. Reports, often taking up reams of paper, were laboriously sorted through and distributed.

After Mr. Balsley left in 1994, the office was re-organized on July 1, 1995, as Institutional Analysis (IA), under the direction of Mr. Dean Schieve. Mr. Schieve was also the first involved with directing the Enrollment Management area.

Ms. Carmen Williams, along with three staff members, moved into the office space in Twamley 403 on July 1, 2000. At this time the office was a function under the Registrar’s Office – Data Collections and Reporting. The office was later renamed Institutional Research in late 2002. August 2006 the IR Office was again re-aligned under the Vice President of Academic Affairs, reporting to Provost and VPAA Dr. Greg Weisenstein.

Today, although the functions and responsibilities are much the same as when the office was first organized, we have computer capabilities that are hundreds of times faster along with the flexibility to produce various outputs from just a quick change in our computer programs. Coming into our office, you’ll see we each have dual 19” flat-screen monitors on our desktops. Our files are now arranged electronically on our shared server space. We have multi-gig desktop computers that compile large (thousands of records) data files in seconds. We have numerous computer reports and survey analyses available via the web – opened to the campus community and the world. Instead of supplying data via paper, the vast majority of our data requests are electronic feeds. In turn, we also have immediate access to hundreds of national data files that allow the flexibility to collect comparative statistics. Computer functions today allow us to quickly create files, map data, point and click our way through tables, and easily create and manipulate graphs – all at our desktop.