Joe Clifford, outreach and arts education manager for the Hopkins Center, wants more students to use the facility's resources, so he has created a survey to gauge how students use the Hop and gather feedback about what changes they would like to see.
The survey, which ends this afternoon, takes about 10 minutes to complete. It went live online last Monday, Oct. 20, and in its first 24 hours, over 800 students participated. While it's easy to assume that these students were lured by chance to win the free Film Society movie pass, the gift card to Boloco or the gift card to Ben & Jerry's, more than 50 percent of students answered that they would like to learn more about the programming at the Hop via e-mail, as well as receive a summary report of the findings from the survey.
This survey is part of a larger research project that includes in-audience surveys, a mail survey for ticket-buyers and a series of focus groups. As Clifford claimed, "This census is truly a ground-breaking national model for assessing student's attitudes, preferences and behaviors related to arts and culture."
After requiring students to supply basic background information about themselves, such as their major, class and extracurricular involvements, the survey asks participants to rank their level of activity in the arts, as well as their interest in various art forms.
While the Hopkins Center staff has never conducted a student cultural census before, it believes the project is necessary to better serve the student body. As Clifford explains, "The Hop's mission is to 'ignite and sustain a passion for the arts' in the student body, and we're eager to become an integral part of their academic and social lives." The survey asks students what brings them to the Hop, which performances may encourage them to come more often and where they get their information about Hop events.
Many students may be unaware of the breadth of offerings at the Hop. Every year, the Hopkins Center hosts nearly 500 events, screens over 200 films and sells over 125,000 tickets to live performances.
Gaby Collins-Fernandez '09, an art major, admitted, "I go to performances a lot, mostly because I am an usher, but I really love the movies and music performances that I would probably never go to otherwise."
Clifford encourages students of all majors to consider the Hop as a cultural resource. "Whether or not students see themselves as artists, they should make the Hop their own," he said. The Hop offers P.E. dance classes in addition to workshops in woodworking, jewelry-making and pottery, and the web site encourages novices to sign up.
Volunteering opportunities, through Student Teachers in the Arts are also run through the center. Dartmouth students involved in START visit local public and private schools to help elementary students with projects.
Emily Rowan '11, a geography major, supports Clifford's hopes to involve all undergraduates in the arts through the Hopkins Center's events and programs. As she said in an interview with the Dartmouth, "I'm not an art major, but I'm still interested in the arts and what's going on at the Hop, and I think there are a lot of Dartmouth students who share this sentiment. Personally, though, I'd like to see more popular bands come to the Hop."
The survey aims to gather this type of student feedback. As Clifford commented, "Given that students are such a critical constituency for the Hop, we've carefully developed a set of questions which will give us a baseline reading of the student body's 'cultural pulse' and allow us to make informed decisions about the way we operate, communicate and engage students in our programming."
Almost 1,400 undergraduate students have completed the survey, available at hop.dartmouth.edu/pulse.html.
