Where do Holy Cross students stand on issues of the day?

By Donald N.S. Unger

“I always have assigned a semester project in the ‘methods [of social research]’ course,” explains Royce Singleton, Holy Cross professor of sociology.

“In the past,” Singleton continues, “students have written research proposals, carried out small-scale research projects and participated in various surveys. A decade ago, for example, students conducted telephone interviews with Worcester senior citizens as part of a needs assessment survey. The survey aided the Worcester Commission on Elder Affairs’ effort to establish a senior center in Worcester .

“In spring 2001,” he explains further, “students conducted personal interviews with people seeking charitable food services at various sites in Worcester . The survey was done on behalf of the Worcester County Food Bank as part of a national survey by America’s Second Harvest - the nation’s largest hunger relief organization. The experience with this project led me to create the Holy Cross Student Survey [HCSS], which has been an integral part of the methods course for six consecutive semesters - since fall 2001.”

We live in an age of polling. One can hardly open a newspaper or a magazine or turn on the television - or, increasingly, log on to a favorite news Web site - without being bombarded by fast statistics on the questions of the day, month or year - most often in the format “A versus B” or “For or Against”: from the war in Iraq to gay marriage to the ongoing presidential campaign. Regarding the last topic, of course, we have so far spent a good part of the year leading up to the November election, dancing in and out of the margin of error with one candidate or the other ahead by a nose, but not far enough out front to get clear of that last misty spray of numbers - often between three and five percent - that shroud the future from us. At some point after the November election - an hour, a day, a month - we will know who our next president is to be. Until then, we discuss, we read, and we mull polling.

As much as polling and the language associated with it - “valid sample,” “margin of error,” “statistical significance” - are integrated into our daily lives, really understanding how polls are constructed, administered and interpreted, is something that arguably eludes a majority of the population.

Not so, however, for the students in Singleton’s classes. For the past three years, under his direction, the Holy Cross Student Survey has been a crucial teaching and research tool - for him, for his students and for a variety of other faculty members and administrators. The focus of the most recent version of the HCSS was politics and current affairs.

The survey is modeled after the General Social Survey, which is produced by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. Founded in 1941, NORC is the oldest, not-for-profit, university-affiliated, national survey research facility.

“The most important purpose [of the study] is pedagogical,” Singleton says. “It is intended to give students firsthand experience in conducting a professionally designed face-to-face interview survey.”

In addition, he cites three important side benefits: “First,” he says, “[the HCSS] is intended to generate information about Holy Cross students that can be used by students, faculty and administrators for a variety of purposes.

“Second,” Singleton explains, “both students and faculty can carry out research - the analysis of available survey data such as HCSS is called secondary analysis. In fall 2003, the survey focused on health issues -in particular, exercise, sleep, nutrition and alcohol consumption” - he continues. “It contained numerous questions on sleep that were designed by psychologist and sleep researcher [Holy Cross associate professor of psychology] Amy Wolfson; Wolfson and her students already have begun to analyze these data.

“Third,” he says, “the HCSS also has included questions specifically designed to gather information to aid in the evaluation of students’ experiences.

“This spring,” Singleton notes, “the HCSS included several questions on academic advising to aid the Curricular Review Committee on Academic Advising.”

Just as both the process of data collection and the data itself serve multiple purposes, there have been multiple sources of direction and inspiration for successive surveys. The most recent survey’s focus on politics and social issues was suggested by alumna Patricia Forts ’81.

The data from the current survey paint an interesting and complex picture of student opinion on Mount Saint James in the spring of 2004 - particularly in the ways in which the students seem to pick and choose their way through issues - often avoiding any obvious orthodoxy. Some trends are clear; while some combinations of responses are fascinating in their contradictions.

In the survey, Politics, President, and Peace Trifecta, for example (a category suggested by but not actually linked together in the survey itself), 45 percent of Holy Cross students identified as liberal in some degree or other; 30 percent identified as conservative. This may go some distance in explaining the presidential preference expressed. As of this spring, the race wasn’t even close to being close on campus: there was essentially a 60/40 split for John Kerry over George W. Bush. Interestingly, given the supposed centrality of the war in Iraq to the upcoming election, this finding opinion contrasts with the majority of students (57 percent vs. 43 percent) who felt that “the U.S. did the right thing in invading Iraq .” And this, in spite of the fact that a clear majority (64 percent vs. 36 percent) also believe that “the war in Iraq has not made the U.S. safer from terrorism.”

Similarly, on a number of today’s hot-button social issues, students sometimes stood with, sometimes against, official Church doctrine. Regarding abortion, for example, only 10 percent were in favor of an absolute ban - compared to 36 percent who identified the procedure as “a matter of individual choice.” In the middle, 54 percent favored varying degrees of restriction.

The same held true on the topic of gay marriage. Following clear national trends - which link opinions in this area most closely to age - cohort seems to have trumped Church: three-fourths of the students were in favor of legalizing gay marriage, vs. one quarter against.

In the matter of capital punishment, however, students bucked the national trend - lining up with Church teaching - with 57 percent coming out against the death penalty and 42 percent in favor.

Singleton plans to continue to integrate the HCSS into his methods course and hopes to see the data more broadly used on other parts of the campus. In the meantime, he has provided, not a snapshot, but a CAT scan of what Holy Cross students are thinking.

Donald N.S. Unger is a New York City born writer of fiction and nonfiction and a political commentator for NPR affiliate radio WFCR. He lives in Worcester.