About UND Office of Institutional Research(OIR)

The Office of Institutional Research serves as a resource to university decision makers by providing accurate, consistent, useful, timely, user-friendly, official data that can be used to assess the goals and objectives of the University of North Dakota.

Institutional Research Staff & Contact Information
Vision, Mission & History 
Location & Parking

Institutional Research Staff & Contact Information

Carmen Williams
Director
e-mail: carmen.williams@email.und.edu

Carol Drechsel
Data Analyst
e-mail: carol.drechsel@email.und.edu

Vacant
Research Analyst
e-mail:

Nancy Krom
Office & Data Coordinator
e-mail: nancy.krom@email.und.edu

Vinavtee Kokil
Part-Time Research Assistant

Debabrata Ghosh 
Graduate Service Assistant

 

Biographies from some past Graduate Students

Kaniz Taajwar

Aboubacar Conde - Employed Spring 2010-December 2010
Click here to read Aboubacar's biography

Tamar Baiashvili - Employed May 08 - June 09
Click here to read Tamar's biography

Vision & Mission 

Vision 

The Office of Institutional Research strives to meet all of its responsibilities (pending resources and priorities) in a customer-oriented, expeditious manner by being proactive in operation.

Mission

The Office of Institutional Research serves as a resource to university decision makers by providing official and consistent data, in a timely manner, that can be used to assess the goals and objectives of the University of North Dakota.

In pursuit of this mission the office,

* collects, warehouses, analyzes, and disseminates data relevant to the needs of the campus,

* designs and conducts institutional research studies as needed for informed decision making,

* reports official institutional data to internal and external agencies,

* assists UND offices and individuals with institutional data gathering or with research-related projects,

* provides statistical and/or research consultation to help ensure that the data is used and interpreted correctly,

* keeps current about best research practices, IR technology, and trends on higher education.

Primary Responsibilities

The Office conducts studies, maintains and reports information on topics such as enrollment, retention, degree completion, productivity, and other areas of interest. IR administers several institutional surveys each year and reports detailed, trend analysis on the findings. The Office provides support for assessment, program reviews, enrollment management, institutional grant applications, accreditations, strategic planning, as well as responds to a variety of ad-hoc reporting requests. IR provides data to accreditation bodies such as the Higher Learning Commission, to external publishers such as Princeton Review, US News and World Report, and to organizations such as the Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange, American Association of University Professors, and Oklahoma Faculty Salary Survey. Other responsibilities include, providing support for human resource and financial query applications, creation of student cohort databases for longitudinal comparisons and analysis, conducting analysis of peer institutions, production and dissemination of the University Student Assessment of Teaching (USAT) instructor reports, as well as serving as a liaison on the NDUS Accountability Committee.

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History

Office of Institutional Research
University of North Dakota
History of Unit
1971 – current

Carmen Williams, Director of IR, March 7, 2007 

The Office of Institutional Research was formed in 1971, reporting to Dr. W. E. Koenker, Vice President of Academic Affairs. The purpose of the office was to support University planning and to provide comprehensive information regarding the institution. Mr. Ralph Kingsbury was the very first full-time Institutional Research staff member. Reports such as Hegis (a faculty salary survey), now called IPEDS, were done through the office. Many of the calculations and data reporting at this time were done manually and without the aid of much technology. Mr. Kingsbury was in the IR office, as Director, until December 1974. He was succeeded by Ms. Mary Martin. Ms. Martin held the IR position for several years beginning in 1975.

 

Following Ms. Martin, Mr. Richard Balsley was the Director from early 1981 through November 1994. At this time computer technology was changing quite rapidly. All of the data-crunching that the office did became more and more efficient with the ever-increasing technology-improved computers. Reports, often taking up reams of paper, were laboriously sorted through and distributed.

 

After Mr. Balsley left in 1994, the office was re-organized on July 1, 1995, as Institutional Analysis (IA), under the direction of Mr. Dean Schieve. Mr. Schieve was also the first involved with directing the Enrollment Management area.

 

Ms. Carmen Williams, along with three staff members, moved into the office space in Twamley 403 on July 1, 2000. At this time the office was a function under the Registrar’s Office – Data Collections and Reporting. The office was later renamed Institutional Research in late 2002. August 2006 the IR Office was again re-aligned under the Vice President of Academic Affairs, reporting to Provost and VPAA Dr. Greg Weisenstein.

 

Today, although the functions and responsibilities are much the same as when the office was first organized, we have computer capabilities that are hundreds of times faster along with the flexibility to produce various outputs from just a quick change in our computer programs. Coming into our office, you’ll see we each have dual 19” flat-screen monitors on our desktops. Our files are now arranged electronically on our shared server space. We have multi-gig desktop computers that compile large (thousands of records) data files in seconds. We have numerous computer reports and survey analyses available via the web – opened to the campus community and the world. Instead of supplying data via paper, the vast majority of our data requests are electronic feeds. In turn, we also have immediate access to hundreds of national data files that allow the flexibility to collect comparative statistics. Computer functions today allow us to quickly create files, map data, point and click our way through tables, and easily create and manipulate graphs – all at our desktop.

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Location & Parking
Location - UND Office of Institutional Research is located on the 4th floor of Twamley Hall, on the campus of the University of North Dakota. Click here for campus map.

Parking - A metered parking lot is located directly adjacent to the building.

Directions to Campus
From the North on I-29:
From I-29 (southbound), turn off at Exit 140,
Turn right (east) onto Demers Avenue,
Turn left on to 42nd St.,
Turn right (east) onto University Ave.,

 

From the South on I-29:
Turn off the Interstate at Exit 140
Turn right (east) onto Demers Ave.,
Turn left on to 42nd St.,
Turn right (east) onto University Ave.

 

From the West on US-2 (Gateway Drive):
From US-2 (eastbound), turn right (south) onto N> Columbia Rd.
Turn left (east) onto University Ave.,

From the East on US-2 (Gateway Drive):
From US-2 (westbound), turn left (south) onto N. Columbia Rd.,
Turn left (east) onto University Ave.,

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