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

Ryan L. Sharp Author

08/10/2017 Added

21 Plays

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

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[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.

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

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