One hundred years have passed since the founding of the Bureau of Institutional Research at the University of Illinois. If Coleman Griffith, director of the UI bureau, is the father of institutional research, Ruth E. Eckert is the mother of the profession.
In 1954, the Bureau of Institutional Research at the University of Minnesota released a ten-year review of its program that exhibited more substantive separation from the premises of self-study.[i] Ruth E. Eckert, director of the central office at University of Minnesota in the mid-1940s, led many of the activities for the ten-year period reviewed. Educated at the University of Buffalo and Harvard University, Eckert published on many subjects directly tied to institutional research during her career. Her studies included issues related to student retention, the value of preparation courses, why faculty serve, PhD students’ views of foreign language requirements, and an appraisal of general education outcomes. After leaving her administrative post at the University of Minnesota, as a scholar she contributed to several research studies by Minnesota state committees, the North Central Association, and national organizations for the study of higher education including the American Council on Education and the US Department of Education’s first Cooperative Research Committee.[ii]
Far more than Griffith’s publication in the mid-1930s, Eckert’s publication profoundly influenced the direction of the profession. For the next ten years, nearly every reference to the rapid expansion in the number of administrative bureaus and offices of institutional research begin in reference to Eckert’s 1954 report.
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[i]. Ruth E. Eckert and Robert J. Keller, eds., A University Looks at Its Program: The Report of the University of Minnesota Bureau of Institutional Research, 1942–1952 (1954). The origins of the bureau are described on pages 3–5. Cited in passim in subsequent paragraphs.
[ii]. Ruth E. Eckert, “A Journey toward Understanding,” The Journal of Higher Education 50, no. 3 (May–June, 1979), 233–255.