Poll reveals VU student viewpoints

Nashville City Paper ^ | March 28, 2003 | Colleen Creamer

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Interhall, Vanderbilt’s Residential Student Government, polled 511 students last month unearthing some surprising results, one being that Vanderbilt’s women are more liberal than their male counterparts.

The study was a random, confidential phone poll on issues such as political affiliation, war and campus safety. On all questions asked, roughly 17 percent had no opinion.

“One of the most surprising things I thought, given that Vanderbilt is perceived as a conservative campus, was for the split to have been nearly 50-50 in terms of political ideology and party affiliation,” said Josh Burgener, communications director for Interhall. “The fact that so many students identified themselves as being affiliated with one party or the other indicates a strong sense of activity.”

On whether the university should have consulted with the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) before changing the name of Confederate Memorial Hall, the study showed that 67.3 percent of students believed the university should have and 22.1 percent disagreed.

In terms of the name change alone, 40.1 percent agreed and 43.9 percent disagreed.

Burgener said the results showed that ethnicity, gender and party affiliation had a direct affect on how the students felt about the name change. Of African Americans polled, 69.2 percent agreed and 15.4 percent disagreed. Of the Caucasians polled, 49.4 percent disagreed with the name change and only 34.6 percent agreed.

In terms of gender, the study revealed that 33.3 percent of Vanderbilt men agreed with the name change, while nearly 49.6 percent disagreed. But Interhall pollsters found that 46.8 percent of women agreed with the name change and 38.1 percent disagreed.

“We found that throughout the poll, the women of Vanderbilt seem to be more liberal than their male counterparts,” Burgener said.

Interhall found that the student body was split on the issue of war with Iraq. Fifty-two percent of Vanderbilt students were in support of the war and 48 percent were not.

Nearly the entire student body believed Chancellor Gordon Gee was doing a good job, giving Gee a 94.3 percent approval rate. In addition, Gee scored a 96.9 percent approval rating among women students and 91.4 percent from men students.

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[metesky]

Quite a surprise to find out that women are more liberal than men, huh?

Huh?

Huh?

[thatdewd]

...given that Vanderbilt is perceived as a conservative campus,...

LOL.