Duke Student Government recently created the DSG Research Unit, a committee of students designed to quantitatively review different facets of student life in order to help solve campus issues. DSG recently appointed junior Kshipra Hemal to be the DSGRU director for this year. The Chronicle's Kali Shulklapper conducted an email interview with Hemal on her plans and goals for the new unit and what she hopes to bring to her role.
The Chronicle: Why do you think DSGRU is so important for effectuating change on campus? What do you think it will provide to the Duke community in terms of what we have lacked in the past?
Kshipra Hemal: I could not be more excited for DSGRU’s launch because I think it’s so important to have a unit that not only creates evidence for better policymaking but also assesses the impact of the changes we affect.
A research unit is the most productive investment for any institution, especially one that routinely influences the life of all students through the work of a few. I am completely certain that evidence-based initiatives are more successful and lasting than ones without any statistical backing. Enhancing our proposals with data has a whole host of advantages that affect all parts of the policymaking process. Not only can we understand the campus problem better, but we can also allocate resources more efficiently, back our proposals up with numbers and make a better case to administrators and our fellow students.
Duke Student Government invests tremendous amounts of time and resources into improving campus for students, and what we lacked before is the means to tackle broad, overarching issues that are typically very hard to understand. DSGRU will attempt to grasp these problems and contextualize them in a way that makes it easier for DSG senators to better understand the issue and create more efficient policy to tackle the problem.
TC: How do you think your past experience with research, etc. prepares you for this position?
KH: To complement my major in statistical science, I’ve tailored my entire Duke experience around conducting research. Last year, I co-conducted a campus-wide study aimed at understanding students’ confidence, self-efficacy, romantic relationships, rates of alcohol consumption and gender violence. [Duke Inquiries in Social Relations] expanded on the work of the Greek Culture Initiative from past years and we ended the year with a fruitful conversation about our findings with campus administrators and stakeholders.
Through my coursework, I have also researched the impact of teaching methods on women’s self-efficacy in STEM courses, gender differences in cardiovascular disease and best practices in gender studies curricula as part of an independent research project for India’s [Central Board of Secondary Education]. I was a member of the Bass Connections Education and Human Development theme and I served on a team that uses statistical inference to answer the age-old question of whether marriage has a causal impact on children’s educational outcomes.
I spent the past summer conducting an impact analysis of microfinance programs for HIV-afflicted households in Moshi, Tanzania through an independent DukeEngage. During summer 2013, I compiled a report on household selection bias in a citywide survey of Bangalore, India through a grant with Service Opportunities in Leadership.
I think the most applicable experience I have is running DISR and studying self-efficacy in STEM courses. Both of these projects utilized Qualtrics, R Studio and STATA. Additionally, I have worked closely with the Institutional Review Board and the Office of Institutional Research for implementing both projects.
Having done all this, I know how chaotic and messy the research process really is and I feel equipped to handle that when I inevitably face it with DSGRU.
TC: What do you hope to bring to the table as director?
KH: I would really like to explore the possibility of conducting impact analyses of existing DSG initiatives, starting a longitudinal study of campus culture, and making our data/research accessible to the public in the form of an interactive website.
The impact analyses are important because they can better future legislation and the results can tell senators or administration what works and what doesn't work.
The longitudinal study is particularly important to me, because that's what I did with DISR last year. I think there have been many wonderful faculty-led initiatives to study campus culture, but I think it’s critical that we have a consistent, student-led barometer of campus culture. This way we can put numbers on the issues that affect students instead of believing the myths that circulate through campus. A longitudinal study will also allow us to study issues over several years, which will allow us to measure the efficacy of our efforts to combat them and identify areas of further improvement.
I also want to devote time to making data publicly available to students along with tools to visualize and experiment with the data themselves. We're looking at the possibility of launching a website with applets that would allow the public to visualize the data interactively. This way, people can look at datasets from different angles and ask questions that we didn't have a chance to ask.
TC: What are you looking forward to the most in terms of heading this research unit?
KH: I'm really eager to work with the committee and alongside DSG. I know from experience that conducting this type of research without institutional backing is very hard and onerous. Having both DSG and administration's support will be pivotal in making this type of research possible
TC: Anything else you’d like to add?
KH: ….We have flexibility in designing our goals since it's our first year and I would really like to explore the possibility of conducting impact analyses of existing DSG initiatives, starting a longitudinal study of campus culture, and making our data/research accessible to the public in the form of an interactive website.
A committee of six to seven members will be chosen and we will start meeting once a week and on a need basis after fall break. You are not required to attend the DSG meetings until next semester, when we will be asked to present our findings at one or two meetings. We will be working closely with the Office of Institutional Research and the Institutional Review Board, so this is a great opportunity to get acquainted with them. Additionally, you can apply what you learn in class and contribute significantly to the legislative process! If this sounds interesting, check out the application and more information on DSGRU.
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