News
Please join Jason Hairston on May 9, 2012 at 9:30am at AGLS 419 Conference Room as he holds his final presentation for his Master’s Degree.
Chair – Scott Shafer
Member – Michael Schuett
Member – Tarla Peterson (WFSC)
Title:
Guided Cave Tours – Taking Visitor Experience Underground
Abstract:
The National Park Service contains a variety of park sites, with a purpose of protecting specific resources and providing unique visitor experiences. Much research in the field of outdoor recreation has studied the visitor experience in National Park settings. These visitor management studies have focused on issues such as social carrying capacity, conflict, satisfaction and crowding, among others. However, cave settings have seen limited studies, especially in the area of the experiential component on a guided cave tour. Many aspects of cave tours are unique and demand focused research and management approaches. This paper outlines current knowledge of the social elements of a cave tour experience, and reveals gaps in this knowledge. Issues related to facility design, tour structure, visitor on visitor experience, and the role of cave guides are covered in order to fully comprehend the intricacies that make up a cave tour. Management implications are suggested, including indicators of quality, as well as research needs related to social elements of cave tours.
6th Texas A&M Summer Statistics Workshops for Social Sciences
which will be held at College Station, TX June 25-29, 2012.
This year we are very excited to have two new workshops:
1) Missing Data Analysis taught by Dr. Craig Enders (http://ssw.tamu.edu/MissingData). He will cover not only the commonly used missing data techniques (multiple imputation and full information maximum likelihood methods) but also advanced topics such as fitting not missing at random models for growth curves and multilevel imputation.
2) Longitudinal Data Analysis taught by Dr. Vic Willson (http://ssw.tamu.edu/Longitudinal) which will cover a wide range of topics on longitudinal analysis, including the traditional repeated measure ANOVA and MANOVA approaches as well as the multilevel modeling and latent growth modeling approaches. Advanced topics such as latent class growth model and error structure specification will also be included.
We will also have our original workshops, including:
Item Response Theory by Roger Millsap (http://ssw.tamu.edu/IRT) who will cover the new IRTPRO program (http://ssicentral.com/irt/index.html)
Intermediate Statistics by Bob Hall (Texas A&M University)
Structural Equation Modeling by Myeongsun Yoon (Texas A&M University)
Hierarchical Linear Modeling by Oiman Kwok (Texas A&M University)
More details of the workshops can be found:
http://ssw.tamu.edu/
Cost:
Early Bird Discount: regular courses (2.5 days with a total of 15 hours) are $300 for each course (with a special graduate student early bird discount for $150 per workshop). To qualify for early registration, registration forms and all payment fees must be received by May 18, 2012.
Regular Cost – courses are $400 each for faculty, staff, and professionals; $200 each for graduate students.
Graduate students wishing to take advantage of this discount must either email Angela Welch (arwelch@tamu.edu) a pdf file of their student ID, or fax a copy of their student ID to 979.862.1256. Please address fax to ATTN: Angela Welch with the Subject: SSW Graduate Student Discount.
The Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) will offer its Fall 2012 Teaching Assistant Training program August 21-23, 2012 from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, in the Blocker building. The training is offered to graduate students who will be teaching for the first time to comply with Texas A&M University’s guidelines. TAs will only need to attend one day of training. The 3 potential training dates will be divided up among the 9 colleges as registration information is collected. Our intent is to have an even distribution of participants for each day of training. If your college has a training program that conflicts with our training dates, please let us know so we can make accommodations. If TAs cannot attend on their assigned training date, we welcome them to participate as a walk-in on another day that the training is offered.
Please feel free to contact us at cte@tamu.edu or 845-8392 if you have any questions or concerns.
The RPTS Journal Club will meet at noon every other Friday starting again in the Fall. Faculty members are invited as well as our grad students. Attached is the flyer which will be released for the advertisement. I have also attached ‘ Friday Seminar Working Group Report’ that can be used for future seminar organizing plans. It would be greatly appreciated if you could give us some advice or feedback – this is our Grad Student event and we should be using this opportunity to our advantage!
Friday, March 30th Journal Club Article
Friday, April 13th Journal Club Article Alternative 1 Alternative 2
As you all know we changed to Concur system. Before you travel somewhere and you would like to be reimbursed for that (including mini-grants) you must submit travel and leave request. Now days we do it electronically:
1. Log on to SSO: https://sso.tamus.edu/Logon.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fMain.aspx
2. Click on “eTravel/Concur”
3. If it is your first time logging on to Concur, click “Profile” and enter required information
4. Click “Save”
5. To submit a leave request (pre-trip form), click on “Expense”
6. Click on “New Authorization Request” and fill in fields marked in red and save
7. To submit a new expense report, click “New Expense Report” and fill in fields marked in red.
8. Click “Next” on the bottom right corner to attach any receipts and other expenses.
9. Click “Save” when you finish attaching all receipts
Please let Amanda Phan or Tina know if you have any question
