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Survey under way to explore interest in development of the Old Cullowhee Road community
After nearly a year of preparation, Todd Collins, assistant professor of political science and public affairs at Western Carolina University, and his students have begun administering a survey to measure interest in development along Old Cullowhee Road. The first group to be surveyed is WCU undergraduate and graduate students, who received an e-mail inviting them to participate in the online survey by Wednesday, Feb. 18. After the student survey is complete, another will be conducted of Cullowhee residents and WCU faculty and staff.
Todd Collins“In political science we often talk about surveys and polling results in our classes, and now our students are getting a chance to see how it really works from the inside,” said Collins, who has involved students in two Political Science 349 classes in the project. “While this is just a one-hour credit class, they have worked very hard in making this a successful survey.”
Students researched how to create informative and useful survey questions before they wrote and edited the survey. In addition, they studied concepts such as the importance of getting a representative sample for a survey before planning publicity efforts.
In the survey, students are asked for their opinions about the commercial and residential area along Old Cullowhee Road adjacent to campus and near the Tuckaseigee River. Several decades ago, the community hosted at least a dozen more businesses than the number that operate there today. Restaurants in the community currently include a pizza restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, a Mexican restaurant and a café. Businesses include a Laundromat, a children’s music studio, a real estate company, a tattoo parlor and apartments.
The survey asks students to rate whether the landscaping and businesses in the area need improvement and to list what the three biggest changes, if any, are needed to make the area more enjoyable for students. Other questions explore how often students visit the area and how often they would visit if the area had different landscaping or additional businesses. Yet other questions ask students specifically what kind of businesses, such as a grocery store, clothing store or bookstore, they would patronize in the community. The survey also inquires about recreational activities and whether students would use such facilities as a designated fishing area or a picnic area.
Collins and his students will be interpreting the data from the student survey and presenting it to several groups, including the nonprofit Cullowhee Revitalization Endeavor organization, which was formed to support revitalization that reflects the mountain community’s history, culture and natural beauty.
Christopher Blake, CuRvE co-chair and assistant professor of applied linguistics, said the survey will provide useful “hard data” about what students would like to see in a revitalized Cullowhee. “From a planning perspective, it’s essential that we have a good sense of the types of activities, services and venues that students are looking for and, even more importantly, would use in a rural college town like Cullowhee,” said Blake.
A lot of activity is taking place in Cullowhee, he said. CuRvE is working with a grant writer to apply for a grant that would fund a formal exploration of how a recreation area could be developed along the river. The organization also is working with a county greenway commission on efforts to develop a trail system that will follow the river through Cullowhee and connect with the WCU campus and the Jackson County Recreation Center. On a smaller scale, CuRvE is coordinating beautification projects in the area. The Cullowhee Daybreak Rotary Club is adopting an area to landscape near the Laundromat, and it is beginning to line up volunteers to help with the planting and maintenance of plants in flowerboxes on the bridge over the Tuckaseigee River.
“In addition, we are applying for a grant to fund an interpretive trail near the entrance of Cullowhee,” said Blake. “This trail will communicate the unique history of the area, including its Cherokee roots. This would make an excellent service learning project for a group of faculty and students on campus. Seeing the faculty and students join together – like the current survey project in Dr. Collins’ class – makes this grassroots effort all the more exciting and rewarding.”
