September 22, 2010 by Amy

On Fridays at noon, our office suspends the hustle and bustle of meetings, report writing, and phone calls and becomes a seminar room. We gather around our conference table to eat lunch and turn our attention to a topic, trend, or technique important to our work. At some point these lunches were dubbed (somewhat ironically) Slover Linett University, which was inevitably shortened to SLU.

These seminars run the gamut from skill-building workshops about, say, linear regression or ethnographic observation, to broader knowledge-building discussions about newly-released studies or articles, our own recent research findings, or a conference one of us just attended.

I learned about SLU during the interview process before I began working here, and I remember thinking how great it is for a workplace to provide a structure for employees to stay up-to-date on issues relevant to their field. I’ve only been here a few months, but I’ve already learned so much from just a handful of SLU sessions.

With eleven people here in the office, we’re still small enough that communication is pretty easy. But with our three senior associates specializing in different sectors — higher ed, performing arts, and museums — it’s harder than it looks to keep everyone up-to-date about what we’re learning. The weekly SLU lunches keep us all in the loop across all of our projects, so that important findings, ideas, and lessons learned stay fresh in our collective mind.
 

SLU was on vacation over the summer, as vacations and work-related travel took many of us out of the office. But now that it’s Fall, we’re beginning the new “academic year.” Here are a few of the topics that will be on the table (along with our lunches and notebooks): ... 
 

• Common student surveys in higher ed. This week Bill Hayward, who leads our education research practice, will be presenting an overview of the many national and consortium-funded surveys of college students that already exist. We’ll be thinking about how our own work fits into the larger context of student satisfaction, engagement, and assessment research and whether there are gaps in the knowledge-picture that we can fill for our higher ed clients.

• Membership and subscription in transition. Chloe Chittick Patton and Sarah Lee, who lead our performing arts and museum practices, respectively, will review what we’ve learned in recent years about membership and subscription models and how audiences feel about them. In a few recent projects, we’ve looked at how such programs need to change to be more relevant and exciting to members, and the results are fascinating. (As a museum studies grad, I’m particularly looking forward to this one.)

• Population survey methods in the age of cell phones and SPAM. Mike Hanus, one of our three research analysts, will lead a discussion about how to survey people for whom our clients don’t have email addresses — for instance, people who haven’t attended or subscribed or joined yet. We’ll talk about the advantages and limitations of phone surveys, online panels, postal surveys, and street intercepts, and make some strategic decisions about when we’ll recommend each method.

• Special guest seminar: Nick Rabkin. Occasionally we bring in outside experts to expand the scope of SLU. This “semester” we’re excited about welcoming Nick Rabkin to the table. Nick is a social researcher at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) and the University of Chicago, where he’s leading a multi-year study of teaching artists in the US. He’ll share some findings from that project and ask for our help thinking about his next big thing, a study of the causes of the decline in arts participation in recent decades.
   

Why am I blogging about this, you may ask? First, just to share an aspect of this firm that I find particularly unique and stimulating, but also to invite you into the SLU process. Suggest a topic for us. Volunteer to be a “visiting lecturer,” like Nick. Or, if you’re in Chicago and would like to join us for a particular lunch, let us know. The quality of the food varies, but the conversation is always good.
 

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