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The American Freshman - National Norms for 2006

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About the Authors...
John Pryor is the Director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP), the longest-running and largest empirical study of higher education in the country. He is also the Managing Director of the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI), where the CIRP surveys are administered. Before coming to HERI in 2005, he was the Director of Student Affairs Planning, Evaluation, and Research at Dartmouth College. He obtained his M.A. in Psychology from the University of Virginia and his A.B. from Dartmouth College.

Mr. Pryor’s specific interests are in college student alcohol use, health issues, at-risk behaviors and survey research methodology. As the Director of the CIRP surveys, he conducts longitudinal research on the changing nature of college students and the impact of college.

Sylvia Hurtado is Professor and Director of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA in the Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences. Dr. Hurtado has published numerous articles and books related to her primary interest in student educational outcomes, campus climates, college impact on student development, and diversity in higher education. She obtained her Ph.D. in Education from UCLA, Ed.M. from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and A.B. from Princeton University in Sociology.

Dr. Hurtado is completing a project on how colleges are preparing students to achieve the cognitive, social, and democratic skills to participate in a diverse democracy. She is also engaged in a National Institutes of Health project on the preparation of underrepresented students for biomedical and behavioral science research careers.

Victor B. Saenz is the Cooperative Institutional Research Program's (CIRP) Research Manager, responsible for managing research and reporting activities for the range of surveys conducted under the CIRP umbrella at HERI. Dr. Saenz has worked at HERI for over five years in various capacities, including as a research analyst, a postdoctoral scholar, and as Director of Follow-up Surveys. He also currently holds a joint academic appointment with the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies as a Visiting Assistant Professor. Dr. Saenz received his B.A. (1996) in Mathematics and his Masters in Public Affairs (1999) both from the University of Texas at Austin. He also holds a Master of Arts (2002) and a Ph.D. in Education (2005) from UCLA. Dr. Saenz is a former Spencer Foundation Fellow, and his research interests include: assessing the educational benefits of racial diversity on college campuses; desegregation issues; exploring the leakages in the Education pipeline for underrepresented students; and, chronicling the policy impacts of changing affirmative action and remedial education policies in higher education. His dissertation is titled "Breaking the cycle of segregation: Examining students' pre-college racial environments and their diversity experiences in college."

Jessica S. Korn is currently serving as the Project Manager at the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP). She obtained her B.A. in Sociology (1990), as well as her M.A. (1992) and Ph.D. (1996) in Education from UCLA. She is returning to HERI after ten years in the field as an Institutional Research practitioner. She has served as a research scientist in the Office of Educational Assessment dedicated to working on the University's response to the state’s new accountability measures; an affiliate assistant professor in the School of Education at the University of Washington; Director of Institutional Research and Executive Staff at Eckerd College; as well as Associate Director of Institutional Research at Loyola University.

Dr. Korn's specific research interests revolve around evaluation and assessment in higher education; survey methodology; factors within the college environment that promote or impede students' growth; as well as the phenomena of violence against women and trauma survival in the college setting. Along those lines, Dr. Korn has also assisted the United States Department of State in monitoring elections in the former Yugoslavian republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as in assessing Fulbright programs on the trafficking of women and children.  

Jose Luis Santos is assistant professor of Higher Education and Organizational Change in the Department of Education at the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies and an affiliate scholar of the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI). Dr. Santos has written journal articles, book chapters, and policy reports related to his primary interests on comparative state policy research in higher education, involving public finance—government sponsored investments in students and resource allocation. He is concerned with federal, state, and institutional policies that may not adequately boost educational and economic outcomes for traditionally underrepresented students but, in fact, may perpetuate social reproduction and class stratification. Prior to joining the faculty at UCLA, Dr. Santos was a senior institutional researcher and the founding director of the Latina/o Policy Research Initiative (LPRI) at the University of Arizona where he earned his Ph.D., M.A., and B.A.

Dr. Santos is developing a project related to tuition discounting practices at public universities and their effects on access, retention, and graduation.

William S. Korn is HERI's Associate Director for Operations and has managed the data processing side of HERI since 1982.  Bill computes the National Norms tables for our survey reports; produces the Institutional Profiles, special reports and data files for participating institutions; maintains HERI's research data bases; manages HERI's local area network; and advises students, researchers and staff about data and data analysis issues.  He serves as primary instructor for Level 1 of the annual CIRP Summer Workshop; co-teaches the HERI-designed class in data analysis using SPSS at the UCLA Graduate School of Education; and presents at various conferences.  Bill began his programmer/analyst career in 1967 at System Development Corporation in Santa Monica, and has worked at the Statistical Research Unit of the Brentwood Veteran's Hospital as well as UCLA's Center for Computer-Based Behavioral Studies and Institute for Social Science Research.  He earned a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from California State University at Northridge in 1975.

For further information, please contact the Higher Education Research Institute at 310-825-1925 or via e-mail at heri@ucla.edu.

     

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