Exploring Bemidji's Natural Delights and Campus Charms

1. “What do you think of when you hear the word Bemidji?”

2. A total of 37 items were recorded. Considerable overlap exists between possible categories, including at least… 1. …responses related to Bemidji State University appeared 7 times. These included “OPC”, “Environmental department”, “school” (3 times, once as “college”), “Rec center”, and “losing sports teams”. 2. …responses related to natural features and climate appeared 10 times. These included “trees” (3), “lake” (3- once as a specific lake), “snow”, “north”, and “cold” (2- once with a temporal reference (“right now”) and once with a highly specific cultural label (“Brrmidji”), as well as an additional personal association (“John Enslin”)). 3. …responses related to nature-based activities or spaces where such activities occur appeared 9 times. These included “driving”, “trails”, “OPC”, “skiing”, “fishing”, “lake” (3), and possibly “tourists”. 4. …related to off-campus sites and specific populations or individuals, appearing 13 times. These included “Duke”, “Brrmidji”, “John Enslin”, “Grand Forks”, “Home”, “Ojibwe”, “Kris”, “North”, “Paul Bunyan”, “friends” (2), “tourists”, and “family”. 5. …related to states of mind or views of place, appearing 7 times. These included “exotic”, “developing”, “small”, “difficulties”, “confusion”, “excitement”, and “lack of arts”. A total of 37 items were recorded. Considerable overlap exists between possible categories, including at least…

3. So, it’s possible to suggest at least 5 different categories of responses appear in the lists. None of these 5 kinds of response (1 – 5) appear only once. Likewise, none appear more than half of the time, though nature-related responses (2 & 3) appear 41.3% of the time (19 responses out of 46 assignments to categories). University-related responses (1) appear 15.2% of the time (7/46). Other sites and specific populations triggered responses (4) 28.3% of the time (13/46), and states of mind trigged responses (5) 15.2% of the time (7/46).

4. Remember the original assumption: The position of a response on a list is significant, as is the relationship between positions of different responses on a given list. So, find the most frequently-appearing (or “high”) responses among all the lists. In the limited sample assembled, only 5 responses appeared more than once: Remember the original assumption: The position of a response on a list is significant, as is the relationship between positions of different responses on a given list. So, find the most frequently-appearing (or “high”) responses among all the lists. In the limited sample assembled, only 5 responses appeared more than once: A. Trees (3) B. Lake (3) C. School (3) D. Friends (2) E. Cold (2) The 10 possible pairings of these high responses are as follows: AB AC AD AE BC BD BE CD CE DE

5. Now, for each informant's list, find the difference in order of listing (“distance”) for each of the 10 possible combinations of “high” responses. James: Nathan: Eveily:

6. Then standardize each distance by dividing it by the length of the list in each case and multiplying by 100. After you've done these calculations for each list, find the mean standardized distance over all lists for each of the pairs. James: Nathan: Eveily:

7. (Continued…Then standardize each distance by dividing it by the length of the list in each case and multiplying by 100. After you've done these calculations for each list, find the mean standardized distance over all lists for each of the pairs.) Mean standardized distance over all lists for each of the pairs: Note that for many pairs (AE, AD, BD, BE, CD, CE, and DE), summed distances are only divided by 1 or 2 rather than 3 since those pairs don’t appear on all lists.

8. In general, this very small sample suggests that people most often associate “Bemidji” with natural settings and nature-related activities. Perhaps most interesting of the associations presented is the relatively high significance of associating the lake setting of the university with the school itself (BC)- the publicists for BSU should be pleased to learn that “The Lake, The Learning, The Life” really does resonate with this not-insignificant population of responders. It is also worth pointing out what does not appear as significant in responses of the sampled population. Only one responder mentioned indigenous peoples (Ojibwe) and only one mentioned socioeconomic indicators of any sort (developing and small). Given the regional presence of not one but three reservations, and the fact that economic developments such as Wal-Mart’s and Sanford’s arrival in town signal potentially major changes, what does the silence of the sampled population say about such issues and about such responders? There’s nothing wrong about such issues not appearing on a freelist; indeed, their absence might prompt you to carry out another freelist where you try to find out if such issues have any importance for any population in the area. The least important associations people make in this regard have to do with the lake and cold weather (BE), which is interesting when put into the context of when the freelist was produced (January). It might be that the two responses are only weakly associated because this population of responders has little use for the lake when it is frozen over (that is, none are avid ice fishermen or outdoor curling enthusiasts). The point is to wonder whether or not associations of the lake and different seasons would be stronger- other freelistsmight reveal interesting variations of wet- and dry-season associations with patterns of land use, for example. A. Trees (3 times) B. Lake (3 times) C. School (3 times) D. Friends (twice) E. Cold (twice)