OLD GOLD AND BLACK REPORTER
Ethnicity, gender, household income and social security numbers are part of the information being requested in a survey recently administered to students to help the university evaluate its computerization process.
"The overall study is designed to find out what changes occur at Wake Forest as a result of the computerization of the campus. This includes such things as student and faculty abilities to use computers, their attitudes toward computers, changes in communication patterns on campus and changes in the character and community of Wake Forest," said Michael Hazen, a professor of communication and the chairman of the department.
"We hope that the university will use the results to know what is working about the computerization and what is having a positive impact on the university community while at the same time finding out what is not working ... ," Hazen said.
Both Hazen and Provost David Brown, whose name appears on the cover letter for the survey, said that the social security numbers would be held in strict confidence and would not be used to determine the identities of individual students.
"I know that we are being very careful to use the answers only for the purpose of evaluating the impact of the plan, and not for the purpose of any individual counseling. No one in the administration will ever see an individual response," Brown said.
The researchers in the department of communication do not even have access to the information that would allow them to identify individual students from their social security numbers, Hazen said.
"It may be that there are differences in effectiveness of the plan that will be dissimilar by gender ... and by the other demographic factors listed," Brown said.
Hazen gave an example of the type of demographic links that would be of interest in the study.
"For example, are only students from wealthy backgrounds buying Thinkpads and benefiting from the computerization?" Hazen said.
Results of the questionnaire and the broader computerization study could lead to changes.
"The responses should and undoubtedly will ... result in a modification of the specific ways in which the plan is implemented," Brown said.
Brown indicated that the ability to change the plan as a result of student or faculty response may be limited by some decisions already made by the university, such as the commitment to use IBM Thinkpads.
"Our capacity to change things is less constrained by any contract we might have (with IBM) than by the sunk investment," Brown said.