DE coverage of ‘survey’ seems questionable
December 15, 1997
by Michael T. Madigan
I was truly to amazed to read the article on page 3 of Friday’s DE concerning a survey that was taken by graduate students to determine the colors of the cars registered at SIUC. And I was even more amazed to read that the survey was part of a research class. Although what passes for research these days even in respected journals is sometimes questionable, I would argue that a project to determine car colors at SIUC adds little to the knowledge base of humankind.
Please understand that my beef is not with the graduate students involved in this project, as they obviously put in a lot of time (an entire semester, according to the article). My beef is with the DE, which chooses to play up things like a car color survey while essentially ignoring the research efforts of others on campus. SIUC has a large number of excellent researchers doing high-quality research in a wide variety of areas. Why don’t we hear more about them on a regular basis?
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I would propose that the DE start a column called Research on Campus, where once a week a feature article would be published about some professor’s research efforts. What are they doing, why are they doing it and what have they found that’s the kind of thing I would like to read about. Such a column would also give more exposure to the good efforts of graduate students and other personnel working on research projects on campus.
Although the car color survey may make me more aware of automotive diversity while walking through the parking lot on the way to my car ( a blue Ford, by the way), if the DE has the space to cover things like this, it must surely have the space to cover other research activities on campus.
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