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A Miami Moment with ... Denise Krallman

09/06/2012

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Denise Krallman

"A Miami Moment ... " is a Q-and-A column featuring Miami employees.

Denise Krallman loves a good mystery. An avid reader, the director of Miami's institutional research office relishes the step-by-step process of uncovering the facts. And, just as mystery solvers use clues, Krallman uses statistics to illustrate trends that shed light on issues in higher education.

Q: You’ve been in the business for more than 33 years; how did you discover your career in statistical analysis?

I began undergraduate school at Virginia Tech wanting to be a math teacher. After I finished student teaching, I realized I didn’t really know whether or not I wanted to teach. I spoke to an education faculty member who suggested I go to graduate school and major in educational psychology, tests and measurement. I never took any psychology courses before, but I knew I wouldn’t have any problems with the statistics courses. I don’t regret that decision at all. After I finished my degree at the University of Buffalo, I moved right into a full-time institutional research job at Buffalo.

Q: How has institutional research changed through the years?

A: The field itself has grown. Today there are actual doctorate programs that were not there when I was starting out. Today’s technology brought with it a greater sense of immediacy than earlier years. We didn’t have computers on our desks. We worked with mainframes. Computing was very labor intensive. Now, we still produce the salary equity studies, statistics for surveys, and information for guide books like we used to, but we can do it faster, and the expectation is there for us to provide the information quickly. I believe one of the reasons for immediacy is due to more emphasis on accountability in higher education as whole.

Q: What do you enjoy most about your role here at the university?

A: I truly enjoy the analysis part of the job. I currently am involved in a lot of committees, so I don’t do as much as I would like to: Andrea I. Bakker, who works with me, gets all the fun. I especially enjoy retention analysis. Retention analysis is interesting because of its ability to discover patterns and relationships with the retention of our students – whether they enter as first-time students, transfer students or relocating students from the regional campuses; by looking at other groups such as out-of-state students; students in fraternities/sororities; gender, ethnicity, major. Patterns such as course-taking behavior, major changes, participation in study abroad can also play a role in retention and IR’s analyses can identify the effect these behaviors and patterns have on an individual student’s potential for retention and graduation.

Q: What have you learned through retention analysis?

A: It fascinates me that currently Miami students don’t really change that much from year to year in terms of retention and graduation rates. And, we are one of the top schools in the country in terms of our six-year graduation rate as well as our first-year retention rate.

Q: What are the top issues in assessment today? Have they changed?

A: You might think the issues in higher education have changed, but we still deal with the same topics — accountability, financial crises, assessment. They rise in emphasis and then retreat down in a cyclical process. Nothing much surprises me, but right now, I spend a great deal of time thinking about accountability and making sure our office is consistent in the data that we present.

Q: When you’re not researching the numbers, what are you reading?

A: Currently, I enjoy reading novels by the author Linda Fairstein. I would label her books as mystery. I like the female protagonist and the stages of all the story lines, which are set in various locations in and around New York City.