Visitor Survey at Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site

Ryan L. Sharp Author

08/10/2017 Added

20 Plays

Description

Description of the project for Visitor Survey at Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:00.993]Assistant professor at Kansas State University
[00:00:03.613]in the Park Management and Conservation Program.
[00:00:06.154]I primarily teach classes related to park management
[00:00:12.803]and protected area management, and this project
[00:00:18.093]is a little bit different, so I do a lot of work
[00:00:20.667]with the National Park Service in general,
[00:00:24.438]Brown versus Board is a national park
[00:00:27.137]service unit of course
[00:00:29.487]but being a historic site they don't have
[00:00:32.178]the natural resources issues that many of the parks
[00:00:34.450]that I work with have.
[00:00:36.872]However, it's still a national park service unit
[00:00:39.351]and they have questions of their visitors that they'd
[00:00:41.730]like to know that will allow them to better manage
[00:00:44.922]the property to provide the experience that visitors
[00:00:50.531]are looking for, but also this project's really interested
[00:00:54.404]in not just knowing about the particular site here,
[00:00:59.368]the actual school, but it's also interested in
[00:01:02.450]how this school is a part of the larger community
[00:01:04.634]of Topeka.
[00:01:06.594]So, the tourists, I don't know if it's the tourist
[00:01:10.217]board but the folks in Topeka that are interested
[00:01:13.011]in tourism are interested in how Brown versus Board
[00:01:16.964]is connected to other historical sites in Topeka.
[00:01:21.166]So, part of the work that we're doing is trying
[00:01:23.500]to understand general things about visitors
[00:01:26.520]when they come to Brown versus Board,
[00:01:28.494]what are they doing, what are they expecting,
[00:01:30.572]what type of experiences are they having,
[00:01:32.980]but also, another component of that is
[00:01:35.100]what are they doing when they're not here.
[00:01:38.460]So where do they go before they come here,
[00:01:40.848]where do they go after they leave here,
[00:01:42.941]how long are they in Topeka, is this part of a larger
[00:01:45.456]route that they are taking, are they just coming here
[00:01:47.468]for this particular park.
[00:01:49.279]So those are really some of the large scale questions
[00:01:51.887]that they are interested in answering as part of this study.
[00:01:54.375]The number one thing is at the end of the day
[00:01:59.598]when the study is over the park will receive a technical
[00:02:03.248]report which will provide them with that information,
[00:02:06.201]I was saying, that will allow them to better provide
[00:02:09.696]interpretive programs, and even asking questions like
[00:02:12.295]do you want interpretive programs.
[00:02:14.906]Brown versus Board is a little bit of a different place,
[00:02:17.968]in that you can walk in the front door and you're
[00:02:20.727]immediately immersed in the experience.
[00:02:23.441]You can walk into the gymnasium and you're surrounded
[00:02:26.135]by video screens talking about the importance of this site.
[00:02:29.827]You can walk into classrooms and there's videos there
[00:02:33.258]as well and there's signs and there's audio
[00:02:37.564]coming out of the walls that you can hear that really
[00:02:40.337]immerse you in the experience.
[00:02:42.166]So the park is interested in, well, do we need
[00:02:45.136]interpretive programs.
[00:02:46.917]What do visitors want when they come here,
[00:02:48.890]so that's one of the main questions that I hope
[00:02:50.950]this study will answer is, what do visitors want
[00:02:53.634]and what can the park provide to those visitors
[00:02:56.195]that will allow them to enhance the experience
[00:02:59.259]of those visitors while still maintaining
[00:03:00.800]why the place exists.
[00:03:02.704]Obviously you don't want to turn this into
[00:03:04.545]an amusement park, but if you can enhance visitors'
[00:03:07.140]experiences by understanding what they want and what
[00:03:10.496]they are currently getting, then hopefully they can
[00:03:12.711]provide better experience for the visitors,
[00:03:15.115]so that's one part.
[00:03:16.587]The second part is, depending on what we find out about
[00:03:19.157]visitors' trips, overall trips.
[00:03:22.081]So one of the major methodological parts of this study
[00:03:24.901]is that we're gathering email information on-site,
[00:03:28.387]and then we are using that to send them an online survey
[00:03:33.020]after their experience is over.
[00:03:35.504]Because the park is also interested in as I've mentioned,
[00:03:37.903]how does it tie into the larger community in Topeka.
[00:03:40.590]So hopefully at the end of this study, we can say, well,
[00:03:43.800]they came for four days,
[00:03:45.609]Brown versus Board was one of the stops, but they also
[00:03:49.677]went to X, Y, Z historical sites in Topeka as well.
[00:03:53.940]Which will allow the city, along with Brown versus Board
[00:03:57.088]to better plan to provide those experiences to people
[00:04:00.456]that might not be aware that they exist already.
[00:04:03.613]So Kansas State University is a part of the CESU network,
[00:04:06.680]and one of the great things about that is we can
[00:04:10.821]develop these cooperative agreements.
[00:04:12.927]And what the cooperative agreements allow us to do
[00:04:15.260]is to have a little bit more flexibility in how we manage
[00:04:17.453]the projects.
[00:04:18.849]One of the key components of the CESU which frankly is
[00:04:22.283]my favorite part is the 17 and a half percent overhead rate,
[00:04:27.184]right, so that pre-negotiated rate allows us to have
[00:04:31.780]more funding to do more things.
[00:04:35.777]I don't know if that's a common thing across other projects
[00:04:38.538]but for the social science work that I do, we don't get
[00:04:43.309]huge dollar amounts to do these projects.
[00:04:47.028]So every single penny is important to do this work.
[00:04:50.109]So our regular overhead rate at Kansas State is close
[00:04:53.726]to 50 percent.
[00:04:55.332]So if we had to include that in this project and not go
[00:04:58.168]through the CESU, we wouldn't be able to do a third
[00:05:00.562]of what we are doing here.
[00:05:03.041]So that's a huge component to me and that's why I love
[00:05:05.538]the CESUs and I was saying earlier I have five or six
[00:05:09.924]other projects right now where I'm going through
[00:05:13.214]the CESUs and it also allows managers at the particular
[00:05:17.289]sites to have input into what you're doing.
[00:05:20.172]It's a very two way street through the CESUs,
[00:05:24.327]we're working with,
[00:05:25.824]You work with the park, you work with the CESU folks,
[00:05:29.149]the particular office you're in depending on what region
[00:05:31.694]you're located, but it really provides a great opportunity
[00:05:34.364]for collaboration and it's not just me telling everybody
[00:05:38.096]what to do, it makes for a much more collaborative
[00:05:41.739]environment.
[00:05:43.080]Sure, I think Brown versus Board is a small park.
[00:05:49.091]It's a historic site.
[00:05:51.570]It doesn't get a tremendous amount of visitation.
[00:05:53.620]It is a national park service site.
[00:05:55.996]It's not a Yellowstone, it's not a Yosemite,
[00:05:59.306]it's not a Grand Canyon, but it's still important,
[00:06:02.632]and it tells a story, an important story that I think
[00:06:06.566]more people need to know about.
[00:06:07.947]So one of the primary reasons that I'm excited about
[00:06:12.227]this project is a lot of times parks like this don't get
[00:06:14.865]the support to do projects like this or don't perhaps
[00:06:18.862]think they need projects like this.
[00:06:24.262]But I am a firm believer that the more you know about
[00:06:27.280]your visitors, the more you can provide an experience
[00:06:31.830]that they won't forget, which will also wet their appetite
[00:06:35.644]for, wow, I didn't know that this was a national park
[00:06:39.170]service site, and then hopefully that opens the door to
[00:06:41.887]who knows what else.
[00:06:43.729]To Tall Grass Prairie, to Nicodemus, to Fort Larned,
[00:06:47.602]you know, just in Kansas, or Homestead in Nebraska.
[00:06:51.254]All these little sites that are amazing places
[00:06:53.438]that nobody knows about.
[00:06:55.772]So I think any way that we can promote these smaller parks
[00:06:59.139]though such a project like this through the CESU,
[00:07:01.948]I think that's always a win for the park itself,
[00:07:04.159]but also as the system as a whole.
[00:07:06.329]So this project again being funded through the CESU,
[00:07:09.584]we are able to bring out a graduate student from
[00:07:13.187]Kansas State University on the project, she is
[00:07:15.159]primarily responsible for managing the data collection
[00:07:18.887]on-site and she will also be one of the primary authors
[00:07:22.836]on the report that we end up giving to the park.
[00:07:25.226]So she's a very valuable team member and frankly
[00:07:29.203]the project wouldn't be able to happen without
[00:07:31.224]her involvement.
[00:07:33.197]My name is Brooke Mechels and I am a graduate student
[00:07:35.049]as Kansas State University in Park Management
[00:07:37.239]and Conservation, and my undergrad is in the same.
[00:07:39.922]I am doing a project at Brown v. Board and my primary
[00:07:44.468]role is the data collection and analysis.
[00:07:47.382]This project will allow managers to make more informed
[00:07:52.250]decisions at Brown versus Board.

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

Visitor Survey at Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments