Applied Research Center Staff

ARC staff have over 50 years of combined experience in conducting institutional research, and over 20 years of experience in quality initiatives.

Education

ARC staff have graduate training in applied psychology, program evaluation, research design, training and development, qualitative analysis, and quantitative analysis.

Presentations/Publications

ARC staff have presented regionally and nationally on benchmarking surveys, have published articles on conducted research, and received national recognition for their work, most notably through the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, and the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP).

Faculty Partnerships

Additionally, the ARC partners with UW-Stout faculty who have doctoral degrees in the content areas in which the ARC specializes, including Alumni and Employer surveys, Mobile Technology Assessment, Student Exit Surveys, Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Program Evaluation, Internal Communications, Student Engagement, Retention, Campus Violence Prevention, and Teaching and Learning Research. Through this model, the ARC combines the applied research expertise of the ARC staff with the content expertise of over 250 faculty members.

APPLIED RESEARCH CENTER STAFF

Dr. Meridith Wentz, ARC Director
Cori Beskow, M.S., ARC Manager
Jonathon Burton, Associate Institutional Planner
Libby (Juliana) Smith, Associate Institutional Planner

Great review from AIR!

 For their presentation on "Doing More with Less Time" at the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) Annual Forum, recently held in Chicago, Susan Greene and Josh Hachmeister received a rating of 4.38 on a 5-point scale to the evaluation question, "Overall I was satisfied with this session". A total of 46 people completed the evaluation. One person noted, "Uploaded templates for IR reports are worth the whole cost of attending the forum. Most valuable session of the forum thus far".

Award-Winning Practices

 The ARC's submission for CACUBO (Central Association of College and University Business Offices) on "Doing More With Less" business practices was awarded 2nd place and $500. The ARC strives to make all practices efficient and cost-effective.

What Clients Are Saying

"The High Impact Practices research study that we conducted with the help of the ARC provided us with solid data that High Impact Practices work for all students and correlate with retention. The study also helped us see that minority students have less access to High Impact Practices than white students. Our results were very interesting and will lead to further studies. The staff at the ARC was very helpful and efficient in providing guidance with all aspects of the study including analyzing the data." ~ Glenda Jones, Susan Wolfgram, Jeff Sweat, and Suejung Han, UW-Stout

 

"Thank you to the entire ARC staff for all of your support. You are all very knowledgeable and have explained aspects of the analysis very clearly. Thanks again! I look forward to working with you in the future." ~ Greg Slupe, UW-Stout