Hamilton Students Voice Opinions, Appreciate EMTs

By Michael Gregg, Yoshihiko Kubota, and Xiyue Li

278 students took a HamPoll survey evaluating campus facilities between the dates of April 9th and April 12th, 2008. 59% were female, 41% male, and the sample comprised 62 freshmen, 84 sophomores, 54 juniors and 78 seniors. As a student at Hamilton one gradually gets a feel for how students perceive the campus facilities, and many of the survey’s response trends confirm these word-of-mouth perceptions. Even so, the statistics might surprise you.

Almost one quarter of students expressed dissatisfaction with the medical care and advice at the Health Center, and more than 3 out of every 5 students felt the Health Center needs to stay open longer hours. Campus Safety found overwhelming support; 90% of students expressed satisfaction with their response time to emergencies. Students also love their EMTs, with two thirds of respondents voicing satisfaction and the other third having no experience with the EMT service.

The mail center has mostly pleased students, though one third of respondents preferred the old, card-based package notification system. A full quarter of Light Side students expressed dissatisfaction with the timeliness of snow plowing in the winter. While this in itself is unfortunate, it pales in comparison to the three quarters of Dark Siders similarly dissatisfied. Perhaps the strategy employed in plowing the Dark Side needs to be rethought.

On the bright side, over 90% of respondents reported that their dorms were pleasantly clean. In fact, the question concerning satisfaction with the cleaning job in one’s dorm showed the heaviest skew towards the “very satisfied” answer; make sure you take a moment to thank your janitors for the good work they do.

Of those who have used the Writing Center, around 4 of every 5 students feel their writing has improved from its services. Though only around a half of students have taken advantage of the Career Center’s resources (resume/cover letter help, career choice guidance), most of those who have value their time there. Most students have never been to the Oral Communication Lab or Quantitative Literacy Center, and the rest visit these facilities only rarely. Of the few who have gone, slightly more expressed dissatisfaction than satisfaction.

Despite all of the complaining your friends may do, students tended to express satisfaction with Bon Appétit’s service. 50% were satisfied, 18% dissatisfied, and the rest neutral.

Publication	Satisfaction	Dissatisfaction
The Continental	15%	61%
The Daily Bull	21%	59%
The Duel Observer	52%	18%
HamPoll	45%	15%
The Spectator	39%	27%

Finally, when asked to express satisfaction with campus publications and media, students confirmed previous trends by preferring The Duel Observer, HamPoll and The Spectator to The Continental and The Daily Bull. For each publication, the remaining percentage expressed neutrality.

Here are some responses to the prompt for comments:

• The EMTs are a great group of individuals who do a great deal for this campus.
• My thesis sucks.
• Thank you Dale the Custodian!!!
• The EMTs should get paid or some other form of compensation. Its [sic] ridiculous that they get little to no recognition for all that they do.
• Please plow Bundy next winter, thanks.

Hamilton Students Support Obama

By Tamim Akiki, Yoshihiko Kubota, and Xiyue Li

Barack Obama garnered 55.6% support as the most likely candidate to win the presidential election from the 409 Hamilton students who participated in an online survey conducted prior to Super Tuesday. This percentage far exceeds those of John McCain and Hilary Clinton, who received 22.3% and 21.8% support respectively. 

The population who took the survey identified themselves as 55% Democratic, 13.2% Republican, and 23.7% Independent. Caucasians made up 87.8%, Black/African Americans 2.0%, Latino/Latina/Hispanic 2.0%, Asians 3.9%, Native Americans 0.5%, and 3.9% other. Males consisted of 46.9% and females 53.1%. Interest in the primaries was high, as 93% of respondents felt at least somewhat acquainted with the issues, including 40% who considered themselves to be well acquainted.

The qualities most important in the decision to vote in the primaries were the candidates’ position on important issues (93% considered it very important), the candidates’ personal integrity (73%) and the candidates’ experience (33.7%). The candidates’ political party was not considered to be of major importance, and support for Obama was prevalent throughout the student population: 59.5% of self-identified Democrats, 46.3% Independents, and even 40% of Republicans supported him over the other candidates. The support from self-identified Republicans was most surprising as Obama came within 5 votes of beating the Republican candidate, John McCain. Also, while the focus of the Democratic primaries has been at times shifted to one of Female candidate vs African American candidate, there was no significant correlation between support for Obama or Clinton with race or gender. The great majority of respondents felt that the United States is ready for either a female or a black president. Further, 90% of respondents felt that Obama will perform as President better than the current President. This percentage compares with 81% for Hilary Clinton, 81% for John McCain, 28% for Mike Huckabee, and 24% for Mike Gravel.

As for issues concerning the primaries, only 10% of respondents believe the Bush tax cuts should be permanent for all, while 75% believe there should either be a path for illegal immigrants to citizenship or a guest worker program, and 60.1% support federally mandated universal healthcare coverage. There was no correlation between the respondents’ opinion on these issues with the candidate they support. However, there was a slight difference in the issues of most importance amongst respondents supporting each candidate. The top three issues Obama supporters care about were the Iraq war, environment, and the economy; McCain supporters the Iraq war, economy, and taxes; Clinton supporters the Iraq war, economy, and health care; and Huckabee supporters the Iraq war, health care, and abortion.

One Third of Hamilton Students Dissatisfied with Treatment of Diversity on the Hill

By Michael Gregg and HamPoll Staff

 

In October 448 students took a HamPoll survey concerning racial and ethnic issues on the Hamilton campus. Participants were asked to identify their genders, class years, nationalities and racial or ethnic identities at the start of the survey, and the members of HamPoll correlated the answers to a set of questions on diversity with these characteristics. 

32% of the student body answered that issues of racial and ethnic diversity were insufficiently addressed in the classroom. Broken down, 60% of non-whites expressed dissatisfaction compared to 24% of whites. Among several possible strategies suggested to remedy this, non-whites in particular believed inviting speakers to talk about diversity and inflicting more severe punishment on transgressions would be most effective. Students in general also called for better peer education.

One question involved rating the importance of several characteristics in defining one’s personality, and the differences here were noticeable. 46% of non-whites said that their race was very important to them, compared to only 8% of whites. Other elements such as ethnicity, intelligence/education, family/friends, gender and religion did not vary appreciably, and sexual orientation did not vary at all.

97% of non-whites said issues of racial/ethnic diversity are important to their education at Hamilton, versus only 75% of whites. Similar differences occurred between males and females, with 85% of females finding importance in these issues and only 66% of males. Still, the overwhelming majority of the campus seems to believe these issues important to their education.

Non-whites were strongly more in favor of Hamilton adopting a requirement for each student to complete a course increasing awareness of diversity on the Hill. Among non-whites, 22% reported their opinions being ignored in class due to their ethnic or racial origin (compared to 4% of whites), and 37% reported the same offense occurred outside of class (compared to 12% of whites).

4% of students have seriously considered leaving Hamilton because their race or ethnicity was not respected. 4% of students likewise reported that they’d considered dropping a class for similar reasons. The vast majority of students have not had such doubts. 

Ever the romantics, 57% of Hamilton students have either dated or seriously considered dating students of other races or ethnicities, though non-whites were significantly more open on this front. 44% of students said that Hamilton overall is more diverse than their home communities.

Views on Hamilton’s Media Outlets

By Tamim Akiki and HamPoll Staff

The survey was conducted between January 30^th and February 4^th by Hamilton’s Polling Organization. Two hundred and ten students participated in the survey, and their views on Hamilton’s media outlets are summarized in this issue. HamPoll would like to thank the student body for continuing to support our surveys and to emphasize that our role is simply to document the views and opinions of students. For this survey, we believe that all Hamilton media outlets have hard-working teams behind them and we hope that this information will be useful to them in understanding what the student body is estimated to like and dislike.

 

1. The Right:

With over 69% of respondents expressing dissatisfaction with The Right, this publication ranks fourth among Hamilton’s media outlets. In addition, despite the low 5% Democratic satisfaction with The Right, the Republican equivalent remains low in absolute terms (38%) indicating a general lack of enthusiasm about this newsletter. Lastly, The Right needs to advertise itself on a larger scale as more than 50% of all respondents did not have an opinion about it, a rate second only to that of WHCL (51%). If we isolate those who did not have an opinion, then The Right ranks first is dissatisfaction with 72%. Unfortunately, it also ranks last (16%) in terms of usefulness to the Hamilton Community with support from 43% of Republican student respondents and only 7% of Democrats.

2. The Daily Bull:

The Daily Bull is a very polarizing newsletter. In details, it was able to garner the satisfaction of 45% of the 210 DIFFERENT Hamilton students. This left 53% of the responses expressing dissatisfaction with Hamilton’s yellow daily. As expected, since The Daily Bull is published so frequently, the percentage of students who did not hold an opinion about it was only 2%. In addition, this publication is most enjoyed by freshman with 80% satisfaction compared to 36%, 39%, and 33% satisfaction among sophomores, juniors, and seniors respectively.

3. The Spectator:

Almost 52% of respondents said they were either satisfied or very satisfied with The Spectator and 80% of them thought it is a useful source of quality information for the Hamilton Community. The distribution of satisfaction by class years shows 61% of freshmen are satisfied with The Spec compared to 54% of sophomores 40% of juniors and 51% of seniors. With this newspaper, gender appears to be a determining factor in satisfaction, with females expressing satisfaction at a 15% higher rate than male students.

4. The Duel Observer:

More than 22% of respondents did not have an opinion about The Duel Observer. The Observer has the satisfaction of 60% of the student respondents which means it has one of the lowest dissatisfaction rates among media outlets at Hamilton, second only to WHCL. The lowest satisfaction with The Duel came from seniors (49%) which was a drop from the high satisfaction among juniors, sophomores, and freshmen. The Duel Observer phenomenon is also characterized by its ability to cross party and gender lines securing itself an equally-good reputation among a simple majority of students.

5. WHCL:

Hamilton’s radio station is the least controversial media outlet with more than 50% of respondents expressing no opinion about its performance. Still, it has the support of 36% of students while only 13% of the student body expressed dissatisfaction with WHCL. The reason for the indifference of so many students probably stems from the fact that it is the least common media outlet for students. Our survey shows that 70% of Hamilton students never listen to the radio. However, if we isolate students who do not listen to the radio, then satisfaction with WHCL rises considerably to 58%.

6. The Continental:

Hamilton student respondents expressed deep dissatisfaction with this new magazine with 36% reporting they are very dissatisfied with it and another 20% saying they are dissatisfied with The Continental. Altogether, only 33% said they were satisfied with the magazine and 57% said they thought the magazine is not useful in providing quality information to the Hamilton Community. Only 23% of males expressed satisfaction with The Continental compared to 41% of females.

7. The Wag:

Almost half of the respondents were satisfied with The Wag but more than 30% did not express their opinions regarding its performance. Similar to The Duel Observer, satisfaction with The Wag does not vary by gender and political affiliation, but unlike The Duel Observer, there is no evidence of a difference in satisfaction with The Wag by class year.

Additional results:

Students who were dissatisfied with:	Were also most dissatisfied with:
The Continental	The Daily Bull
The Daily Bull	The Continental
The Spectator	The Continental
The Right	The Continental & The Spectator
The Wag	The Right & The Daily Bull
The Duel Observer	The Spectator
WHCL	The Continental & The Right

Quotes from the Survey:

“The students seem to be in a bubble when it comes to knowing what is going on in the world. We have to actively seek out any news. There are no national newspapers available in the dining halls, and the student media does not focus on the outside world.”

“Please stop publishing the daily bull.”

“Duel Observer: This publication is a complete waste of paper.. It’s not funny, its offensive to the college and administrators, and is embarrassing for the Hamilton community.”

“I hate Syracuse news. Some lady gets mugged and they talk about it as if it was the end of the world.”

“PLEASE bring the New York Times back to Commons and McEwen.”

“DAILY BULL AND THESSALONIUS TOKEFACE are the soul’s sustenance.”

Students and Faculty Report Their Academic Experiences

By HamPoll Staff

Between November 8th and 11th, 437 students and 69 faculty members participated in an online survey administered by Hamilton’s Polling Organization to study student and faculty opinions of a variety of important academic topics. Results showed 59% of respondents do not believe the college provides them with enough information about courses before registration begins. As a result, 62% of students support requiring the provision of a class syllabus before registration begins. Similarly, 60% of students believe professors’ course evaluations should be made public. On the other hand, only 7% and 3% of faculty members support these two requirements respectively. An area of agreement is requiring Writing-Intensive courses, which has the support of 79% of students and 91% of faculty members. Additionally, only 10% of students and 23% of faculty members think that Sophomore Seminars should be required, showing the massive campus-wide support for getting rid of this requirement. Finally, 41% of student and faculty respondents support the introduction of Oral-Intensive course requirements.

Percentage of students and faculty who said the following should be required	STUDENTS	FACULTY
Providing a syllabus before registration	62%	7%
Making course evaluations public	60%	3%
Sophomore seminars	23%	10%
Writing-intensive courses	79%	91%
Oral-intensive courses	41%	41%

The survey also asked students how often they have violated the Honor Code. The table below shows the break down by major. Results include respondents who said they rarely, sometimes, or frequently violated the Honor Code. Since violating the Honor Code can take many forms, and is not limited to courses within a student’s major, we cannot know what courses suffer the most from these violations.

Fifity-one percent of Economics majors or intended majors reported violating the Honor Code at least rarely. This is contrasted with 13% of History majors reporting violating the Honor Code. It is important to note here that Economics is the most popular major on campus with almost 16.5% of student majors. However, only 8.25% of our sample are Economics majors which may be due to the fact that students were asked to select only one major and many Economics majors selected their second major instead. In addition, differences in percentages between some of the majors such as Natural Sciences and Other Social Sciences (which excludes Economics, Government, and History), are relatively small making it difficult to confirm their statistical significance.

Another major result from the survey includes that 88% of the student body are either satisfied or very satisfied with the performance of professors in their department. On the other hand, only 74% of students said that there were enough resources, such as classes or faculty among others, available for them to use in their department. The break down by department is shown in the table below. We notice that 43% of Economics majors and 82% of Arts majors reported having a lack of resources while 91% of Natural Science majors said that they have enough, or more than enough resources for them to use in their departments. Furthermore, more than 90% of Language and Social Science majors (excluding Economics, Government, and History) said they were satisfied with the performance of professors in their department.

Major/Intended major	Percentage of students who said they violated the Honor Code	Number of respondents
Economics	51%	37
Psychology	47%	30
Humanities	40%	53
Languages	38%	21
Natural Sciences	33%	109
Other Social Sciences	33%	36
Mathematics & Computer Science	30%	33
Government/World Politics/Public Policy	27%	82
History	13%	24
Arts	9%	11

Major/ Intended major	Student satisfaction with professors	Student satisfaction with resources
Other Social Sciences	91.7%	67%
Languages	90.5%	81%
Mathematics & Computer Science	87.9%	67%
Natural Sciences	84.4%	91%
Government/World Politics/Public Policy	84.1%	78%
Psychology	83.3%	87%
History	83.3%	75%
Economics	75.7%	57%
Humanities	75.5%	58%
Arts	45.5%	18%

HamPoll Pre-Election Survey Proves Most Students are White, Rich and From the Northeast

By HamPoll Staff

Indeed, 89% of the 301 respondents described themselves as white, 40% reported family incomes of above $150,000 (with only 10% below $40,000) and 79% were from the Northeast. While this somewhat humorous result may not be surprising, this superficially homogeneous group expressed diverse and often surprising opinions.

The 301 respondents identified themselves as 62% Democratic and 20% Republican (the remaining 18% comprised Green, Libertarian, Independent and all other parties) . Atheists and agnostics made up 29%, Protestants 24% and Catholics 23%. 42% of respondents identified themselves as social science majors, revealing a slight bias in the sample base. Humanities students were second most interested, totaling 25% of the respondents. Students of the arts, foreign languages and mathematics and computer science totaled only 15% in comparison.

Two questions in particular revealed some of the most interesting results. The first asked students to identify how important they perceived a number of current issues to be. These issues, which included taxation, the state of the economy, social issues, racial equality, the war, etc., were all considered either “somewhat important” or “very important” by the majority of students. The two issues that the most students judged as “not important” the most often were immigration and social issues such as stem cell research and abortion. Unsurprisingly, Republicans found taxation to be more important than did Democrats, and Democrats favored social issues and the environment. That Republicans also felt more concerned about the economy is out of agreement with nationwide trends; this can perhaps be explained by the disproportionate amount of wealthy students here at Hamilton.

The last question asked respondents to choose which out of several countries they found most dangerous for global security. Not surprisingly, 45% of students chose North Korea. What interested the staff was the second most popular choice, the United States; this choice, at 26% of the answer total, ranked higher than Iran at 20%. Upon further analysis, it was discovered that while only 5% of those who voted for Bush in 2004 feared the U.S., a whopping 30% of Kerry voters held this view. Apparently Bush’s controversial handling of the various problems in the Middle East has had a drastic effect on the way many Americans perceive their country.

Guys at Hamilton like Attractive and Romantic Girls, Girls Like Smart Guys, Recent Survey Shows

By HamPoll Staff

Hamilton’s Polling Organization (HamPoll) conducted a survey titled: “Sex and Relationships at Hamilton” between October 19^th and October 23^rd. With more than 650 responses from the student body, the online survey was judged to be a big success. Questions targeted important aspects of relationships such as sex, partner preferences, past experience, and choice of activities. Some of the surprising results included a major divide between males and females regarding approval of casual sex. In addition, statistical analyses showed that half the relationships on campus were long distance while half of students having relationships reported a lack of campus activities for couples.

Survey results showed two main differences between males and females. Firstly, only 22% of male students expressed their disapproval of casual sex, compared to 42% of female students who disapproved. Secondly, 50% of single Hamilton males reported that they cannot find the right person for a relationship, as opposed to 63% of single Hamilton females reporting their inability to find the right person. This distinction is contrasted by data that show 88% of single females interested in having a relationship versus 80% of single males interested in finding a partner. As a consequence, we raise the question as to why it is harder for single females than single males at Hamilton to find a partner despite their larger interest. 

An attempt for an explanation takes us to the personal preferences of all males and females at Hamilton with the question: “When looking for a partner, which of the following characteristics do you value most?” We notice that 22% of males value physical appearance most, compared to only 5% of females. On the other hand, 41% of females chose intelligence as the most valued characteristic contrasted with a low of 20% of males choosing intelligence. Furthermore, 20% of males and 14% of females said they valued romance the most when looking for a partner. In other words, single males prefer romantic and attractive females while single females prefer smart males.

 

Politically, the survey provides sufficient information to conclude that students who approve of casual sex and who describe themselves as old-fashioned, religious and practice their religion are more likely to be conservative. On the flip side, those who describe themselves as sensitive are more likely to be liberal. As for religious differences, only 40% of Atheist/Agnostic respondents described themselves as romantic compared to 54% of Protestants. Also, Jewish students are more likely to think that sex is important for the success of a relationship. 

In conclusion, the survey showed major differences between genders mainly on the grounds of characteristics of partners. However, overall, survey results indicated that males and females have equally successful relationships at Hamilton.

Recipes for a successful relationship at Hamilton:

If you view yourself as smart:

Date someone you view as loving

Date someone you view as smart

Don’t date someone you view as complicated

If you view yourself as romantic:

Date someone you view as loving and who would talk to you often.

If you view yourself as innocent:

Don’t date someone you view as complicated.

Date someone who would take you to special events like concerts, performances, restaurants, etc…

If you are an Atheist/Agnostic:

Look for someone who does not approve of casual sex.

If you are a Protestant:

Look for someone who views himself/herself as loud, someone you view as smart, and someone who would often talk to you and take you to special events.

If you are a Catholic:

Look for someone who disapproves of casual sex.

Quick Facts about Relationships at Hamilton:

• 56% of respondents have/had relationships that lasted longer than a year.
• 42% of respondents don’t think there are enough activities for couples on campus.
• 14% of respondents who are dating a Hamilton student lived in the same dorm.
• 32% of respondents in a relationship spend more than 15 hours every week with their partner, the equivalent of a part-time job.