E-Mails Suggest Paterno Role in Silence on Sandusky

[thewasher418]

Louis LSU would be a terrible name for a boy.... </wrongthread >

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by thewasher418

Louis LSU would be a terrible name for a boy.... </wrongthread >

Well is is French at least.

[AXOmom]

[QUOTE=ASTalumna06;2163390]Thank you!
QUOTE]
As I said to 33girl, I can't see anything I said that would qualify as jumping down your throat. If that's the case I apologize, but could I ask what I said that gave you that impression?

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06

Can someone please point out to me where I said that Penn State's situation is unique? Where did I say that there are no other schools in the country that can compare to PSU?
.

No, you're right, you did not say it was unique (and for the record I never said that you had stated there were no other schools in the country that could compare to PSU, so I'm not sure where that's coming from), but this comment:

"My point is that basically the entire state IS Penn State.... But what I'm saying is that a huge chunk of Pennsylvanians live and breathe Penn State, even if they never attend the school. It is THE school in PA. That's not to say that other schools in PA aren't great or worth going to.. And I'm not saying Penn State is the best.. it's just that Penn State is a way of life for A LOT of people."

does come across that way. It sounds like you find it unusual at the very least, and the point being made to you by myself and others is that it isn't even all that unusual. The fact that you said it to support something als463 said and she has made several statements that have an even stronger "Penn State is a special snowflake" implication to them added further to this impression. If we misunderstood you, then I apologize, but since there were several of us who misunderstood you, then I think you should consider that in the context of the thread, what you said came across in a way you didn't intend.

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06

I originally agreed with als463's response to this:

... and basically said that with the Penn State pride I've seen among students, alumni, and PA residents, I wouldn't be so quick to assume that every parent of a football player would turn their child away from playing at PSU.

als463's response was to something I said to 33girl concerning the likelihood that football players with ties to Penn State would forego scholarships to other schools in order to play without a scholarship to Penn State, but her response had to do with her view that parents whose kids (any kids -not limited to football plalyers) had scholarships to other schools might still send them to Penn State. I don't disagree with her view on that - it just had nothing to do with my response to 33girl which strictly dealt with football players, so her comment wasn't really relevant.

I also never said that EVERY parent of a football player would turn their child away from playing at PSU and never assumed any such thing. As a matter of fact I stated that some parents under some conditions might encourage their boys to do that, but I mentioned several reasons why I didn't think it was likely that many would (for one thing I don't think there would be many who fit that criteria to begin with).

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06

All I said was that I've never experienced anything like it before. And I haven't. Maybe if I moved to Alabama, or Texas, or other states that people threw at me, I might.

And this was the only point that was being made to you.

Again, I understand that we probably did completely misunderstand you, but I hope you understand why you were misunderstood.

By the way, (and this part isn't directed at you ASTalumna06) I found this survey recently given out by Penn State to their alums interesting.

http://alumni.psu.edu/about_us/2012-alumni-opinion-survey

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by AXOmom

http://alumni.psu.edu/about_us/2012-...opinion-survey

Wow.

I'm all for conducting research but that is a bit strange.

[agzg]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Wow.

I'm all for conducting research but that is a bit strange.

What's strange? I send these for a living so maybe the fact that she looked it up is what's strange to you - I look this stuff up for other schools sometimes for funsies.

It's a really long survey though. I don't know why schools send out such long surveys. My undergrad did one that took me a half hour to fill out. I was annoyed.

ETA: I see their response rates were shitty - I struggle with getting people to respond, too. Getting people to take surveys is hard, especially when your sample population may be discouraged for some reason.

/nerd out.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by agzg

What's strange?

The Joe Paterno items and the survey length.

As for length, they may need to reconsider their survey design. It is difficult enough getting people to complete surveys no matter how many times you distribute them. Alma mater surveys sometimes include items about department and campus dynamics that can impact pride and involvement. There is no way to know the impact of things without conducting the research. That also applies to the Paterno items on this survey. Still seemed strange when I first read it.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by agzg

What's strange? I send these for a living so maybe the fact that she looked it up is what's strange to you - I look this stuff up for other schools sometimes for funsies.

StrategyOne has a fairly good reputation, but this questionnaire is kind of awkward - the choice of scales (particularly the Likert portion), the bins, and the wording of the single-sentence questions, and so on.

It makes me wonder what the design goals were, and who had final sign-off ... it seems geared toward some narrow outcomes.

ETA: I see their response rates were shitty - I struggle with getting people to respond, too. Getting people to take surveys is hard, especially when your sample population may be discouraged for some reason.

/nerd out.

A 12% response rate isn't really out of the ordinary for phone/email hybrid research - it's low-yield. They did not appear to take any measures to account for 'motivated pollers' in this research, and the 58% male split could well indicate a group with incentive to respond at a higher rate (it could also simply reflect the historically higher number of male students, as well - hard to know without the pool demo). Even if that's 'clean', the proximity to PSU's issues kind of dicks up your ability to claim randomness in the response population (particularly via email) - even in a hypothetical sense, we can imagine who would be most likely to respond: those who are more invested, or those who are most angry, skewing to the sides.

[agzg]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

The Joe Paterno items and the survey length.

As for length, they may need to reconsider their survey design. It is difficult enough getting people to complete surveys no matter how many times you distribute them. Alma mater surveys sometimes include items about department and campus dynamics that can impact pride and involvement. There is no way to know the impact of things without conducting the research. That also applies to the Paterno items on this survey. Still seemed strange when I first read it.

Yeah, that was the point I found weird, too. I thought you were saying it was weird that someone posted it here ("doing your research" v. actually doing research).

Alumni surveys are frustrating. And college campuses shouldn't be asking questions of alumni relating to departments beyond career services/alumni relations although I understand why in this case they included those. But their scales are... Well... Not usual.

My undergrad asked about Admissions. What the flippty what?

Originally Posted by KSig RC

StrategyOne has a fairly good reputation, but this questionnaire is kind of awkward - the choice of scales (particularly the Likert portion), the bins, and the wording of the single-sentence questions, and so on.

It makes me wonder what the design goals were, and who had final sign-off ... it seems geared toward some narrow outcomes.



A 12% response rate isn't really out of the ordinary for phone/email hybrid research - it's low-yield. They did not appear to take any measures to account for 'motivated pollers' in this research, and the 58% male split could well indicate a group with incentive to respond at a higher rate (it could also simply reflect the historically higher number of male students, as well - hard to know without the pool demo). Even if that's 'clean', the proximity to PSU's issues kind of dicks up your ability to claim randomness in the response population (particularly via email) - even in a hypothetical sense, we can imagine who would be most likely to respond: those who are more invested, or those who are most angry, skewing to the sides.

I bet campus leadership was heavily involved in the design. My surveys always get the most frustrating when senior leadership freaks and gets handsy. Why else would they have multiple categories that were essentially the same thing?

Were it a normal Alumni Survey I'd say 12% was fine, but given the proximity of the controversy, it's tricky.

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by AXOmom

No, you're right, you did not say it was unique (and for the record I never said that you had stated there were no other schools in the country that could compare to PSU, so I'm not sure where that's coming from),

I was responding to everyone collectively.

but this comment:

"My point is that basically the entire state IS Penn State.... But what I'm saying is that a huge chunk of Pennsylvanians live and breathe Penn State, even if they never attend the school. It is THE school in PA. That's not to say that other schools in PA aren't great or worth going to.. And I'm not saying Penn State is the best.. it's just that Penn State is a way of life for A LOT of people."

does come across that way. It sounds like you find it unusual at the very least, and the point being made to you by myself and others is that it isn't even all that unusual. The fact that you said it to support something als463 said and she has made several statements that have an even stronger "Penn State is a special snowflake" implication to them added further to this impression. If we misunderstood you, then I apologize, but since there were several of us who misunderstood you, then I think you should consider that in the context of the thread, what you said came across in a way you didn't intend.

I'm not sure how what I said came across as, "LSU, Nebraska, Bama, etc. students and alumni don't have as much pride in their school as PSU".. but ok. If that's how you interpreted it, then that's how you interpreted it.

My point was simply that Penn State has a huge, loyal student/alumni population, which stretches even beyond the borders of PA, and will always be loyal to the school, regardless of what happened.

And agreeing with ONE statement that als463 made shouldn't automatically make me one of the Penn State crazies. I know, just as well as everyone else here, that she is ALL ABOUT Penn State, and can take things to the extreme when it comes to our alma mater. (Sorry als, but it's true)

als463's response was to something I said to 33girl concerning the likelihood that football players with ties to Penn State would forego scholarships to other schools in order to play without a scholarship to Penn State, but her response had to do with her view that parents whose kids (any kids -not limited to football plalyers) had scholarships to other schools might still send them to Penn State. I don't disagree with her view on that - it just had nothing to do with my response to 33girl which strictly dealt with football players, so her comment wasn't really relevant.

I'm not sure how it wasn't relevant.. but ok.

I also never said that EVERY parent of a football player would turn their child away from playing at PSU and never assumed any such thing. As a matter of fact I stated that some parents under some conditions might encourage their boys to do that, but I mentioned several reasons why I didn't think it was likely that many would (for one thing I don't think there would be many who fit that criteria to begin with).

You didn't say this earlier, so... I was under the impression that however I interpreted your statement was correct.

Again, I understand that we probably did completely misunderstand you, but I hope you understand why you were misunderstood.

And I hope you understand why you were misunderstood, as well. The funny thing is, I think people read others' comments here and somehow turned it into something I said.

Oh well. This is why I generally stay away from saying my piece about this whole situation. It only causes issues.

But whatever, it's over and done with. No hard feelings.