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IX. THE DIALOGUE MAIL-BOX

 

Another important function of the Dialogue was the establishment of a method whereby members of the general public could express their opinion via U. S. Mail and e-mail. The purpose was to gather as many divergent ideas and arguments as possible and to afford members of the public an opportunity to be heard. Never was it intended that the responses be considered a poll or a contest.

As time has passed, a great deal of interest has been expressed in a tally of how many favor retention of the Chief and how many are opposed. Such statistical results should be viewed with caution, and should not be taken as any kind of accurate measure of public opinion. Public opinion was not sampled in any scientific way. Because these responses were motivated by a self selection process, the results may be skewed.

Corla Hagenbruch of the office of the Board of Trustees was responsible for handling of the tremendous number of items received by the University. Jean Casserly of Cahill, Christian and Kunkle, Ltd. (CCK) was in charge of the team that processed the mail once it was received from the Board. These two women together with their staffs are to be commended for their efforts which were carried out very professionally and efficiently.

Processing of Dialogue Mail-Box Submissions at UIUC

A. U. S. Mail

Hand delivered mail was forwarded to the Office of the Board of Trustees of the University. Upon receipt, each piece of mail was counted and the number of letters received per day was recorded. All mail received between February 16, 2000and June 12, 2000 was opened and two copies of each submission were made. The original letters and one set of copies remain in the custody of the Board of Trustees Office. The second copy was forwarded to CCK.

B. Electronic Mail

E-mail submissions received between February 16, 2000 through the first week of June were similarly opened, counted and recorded on a daily basis. The Trustees' Office printed out a hard copy of each e-mail. An additional copy of each print-out was prepared and forwarded to CCK. The mail was opened, the envelopes were stapled, address information was highlighted, and "Thank You" letters from the Board of Trustees were prepared.

Processing of Dialogue Mail-Box Submissions at CCK

Upon receipt of copies of electronic and hand-delivered mail, the CCK staff affixed a numbered label to each article of mail. By numbering each document, CCK was able to maintain an electronic inventory, allowing it to track the over 18,000 documents received from approximately 15,000 individuals.

Once assigned a number, each submission was entered into an Access database. Information captured in the database included each respondent's affiliation with the University, his/her position regarding retaining or eliminating The Chief and the method by which the response was conveyed. These projects required a staff of three, two of whom worked full time on the project for three months.

The following table reflects the statistical results of the survey. The individual responses have yet to be scanned for general publication. While there may be some minor inaccuracies in the data base which will be corrected on the web site, the results will not be altered significantly.

 

In reviewing the results, the reader must be mindful of the following:

1. Multiple entries from the same source weretabulated only once.

2. Occasionally, e-mail was sent to the Dialogue mail-box in error (e. g. inquiries for admission to the University, notifications of e-mail recipients being out of town, etc. )In these instances, the submission was noted to be non-responsive and not tabulated.

3. On a few occasions, a multi-page submission accidently was given more than one number. In each ofthose instances, the submission was counted only once.

4. On occasion, it was apparent that a particular comment was submitted by someone affiliated with the University, but not determinable whether the individual was a student, faculty member or employee of the University. In those instances, the submission was classified as an employee.

5. If a person's affiliation was not determinable as a student, faculty member, employee, alumni or Illinois resident, the submission was included as part of the general public.

6. Despite the best efforts of those involved in the data entry process, we were unable to identify every individual submitting an opinion. Some respondents only included their e-mail address, some provided only their first name or no name at all, and some signatures were indecipherable. In order to insure that every opinion was included, when no unique identifying information was available, responses were identified as "anonymous" or "illegible" and included in the survey.

7. As indicated in the survey results, some respondents did not express a definitive opinion. Rather, some expressed hope that a compromise might be reached, some proposed an alternative, others requested additional information regarding the controversy, or complained of the use of time and tax dollars spent on the controversy. These responses were included in the survey as either "neutral" or "unknown. "

 

The Board of Trustees intends to make all of the submissions to the Dialogue mail-box available to the public. To accomplish this, certain precautions are being take to protect the privacy of the respondents. Signatures, personal address and phone numbers are being redacted from responses prior to scanning and subsequent publication. In addition, care is being taken to honor requests from individuals who specifically asked that their responses not be made public. Details as to the publication and accessibility of this report, the Trustees' Appendix, and General Submissions will be released through the office of the Board of Trustees.