Overview of Project KEEP US  

Project KEEP US is an exciting research endeavor undertaken by Syracuse University students in Jean G. Vincent's fall 2004 section of the PRL.315 Public Relations Research course, which is in keeping with SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor's “Exploring the Soul of Syracuse” 2004-05 inaugural year theme.

The public relations majors enrolled in PRL.315 conduct a real-world research project, and students in Ms. Vincent's fall 2004 section took a new approach. Previous classes have selected a specific client, such as a non-profit agency, and developed a research study to address that client’s particular public relations need. Instead, this class formed its own, self-named organization, Project KEEP US, with the sole purpose of filling an identified need for information ¾ information that is of interest to and can benefit the larger community ¾ and disseminating its research findings.

Politicians, community leaders and organizational consultants have commented in the Central New York press in recent years about the need to keep students who graduate from local colleges in the area. Therefore, the overall goal for the class research project is to add to the knowledge base to improve leaders’ decision-making when it comes to retaining area college graduates.

Project objectives are:
· To determine if students at area colleges are staying, leaving or undecided about where to locate upon completing their college education.
· To determine factors that influence students’ decision to stay or go from the area where they attended college.
· To determine conditions or actions that may surface in the study that may be taken to keep graduates of area colleges in the area.
· To determine student characteristics (by location, by career choices, etc.) to better understand research results.

Study participants are asked to provide information about where they want to live after completing their college/university education and to rate location options provided. The study also asks about decision-making preferences, demographic data, current course of study and career plans. All responses are confidential and viewed only as statistical totals.

Given the initial secondary research conducted to facilitate planning of this semester’s coursework and the scientific rigor expected in this course, the students’ research findings could potentially be the definitive study “of area college students by area college students” regarding this topic.

The course instructor, Ms. Vincent, is adjunct professor of public relations research in Syracuse University's Newhouse School and president of Vincent McCabe, Inc., which is sponsoring the class by providing research support among other in-kind services. Ms. Vincent's colleague, Brenda Dow, who suggested the project and is serving as the students’ client contact and on the research team, is vice president of client services at Vincent McCabe, Inc.

The students, instructor and client contact are excited about the possibilities this project offers to the students, Syracuse University and the community at large, and they look forward to its unfolding development.