Article: “What Political Scientists Should Know about the Survey of First-Year Students in 2000” Author: Stephen Earl Bennett, Linda L. M. Bennett Issue: Jun. 2001 Journal: PS: Political Science & Politics This journal is published by the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved. APSA is posting this article for public view on its website. APSA journals are fully accessible to APSA members and institutional subscribers. To view the table of contents or abstracts from this or any of APSA’s journals, please go to the website of our publisher Cambridge University Press (http://journals.cambridge.org). This article may only be used for personal, non-commercial, or limited classroom use. For permissions for all other uses of this article should be directed to Cambridge University Press at [email protected] .THE TEACHERWhat Political Scientists Should Know about theSurvey of First-Year Students in 2000*Stephen Earl Bennett,University of CincinnatiLinda L. M. Bennett,Appalachian State UniversityThe report by the Higher EducationResearch Institute (HERI) at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles oncollege or university first-year studentsin 2000 contains information that is im-portant to political scientists (Kellogg2001; Sax et al. 2000). As did SheilahMann’s (1999) analysis of the 1998 sur-vey, we summarize those facets of thedata about freshmen in 2000 that oughtto interest members of the discipline.HERI releases data from annual sur-veys that are conducted by the Coopera-tive Institutional Research Program,which Linda Sax directs. The 2000 re-port is the thirty-fifth time HERI hasreleased data on young people beginningtheir college or university careers. Typi-cally gathered during freshmen orienta-tion and the initial week of fall classes,HERI’s data pertain mostly to students’experiences as high school seniors andtheir expectations of experiences in insti-tutions of higher learning. This year, thedata were collected on 269,413 studentsin 434 four-year colleges and universi-ties. Two-year institutions, which hadbeen supplying fewer respondents, werenot included. The Institute believes thedata are representative of the 1.1 millionpersons entering last fall as full-time,first-year students in four-year collegesor universities (Sax et al. 2000, 2).Information about Intentionsto Major in Political ScienceAn obvious question political scientistswill ask is how many freshmen plan tomajor in the discipline. As Ernest Pas-carella and Patrick Terenzini note,“[o]ne’s major field of study creates apotentially important subenvironmentduring college. It not only focuses one’sintellectual efforts in a particular direc-tion, but it also has an influence on thekinds of students and faculty with whomone interacts” (1991, 613–14; see alsoAstin 1997). According to MartinFinkelstein, Robert Seal, and JackSchuster, “[t]he liberal arts base of theacademy is shrinking,” while enrollmentsin professional and “occupational” ma-jors have risen (1998, 21). HERI’s re-ports tend to confirm their observation.Just under three percent of first-yearstudents in 2000 (2.9 percent of men, 2.8percent of women) said they expected tomajor in political science (Sax et al.2000). About one-tenth of all freshmensaid they would major in a Social Sci-ence department (Psychology is the mostpopular, with political science second),while one-eighth mentioned “Arts andHumanities,” nearly 17 percent identi-fied “Business,” 11 percent said “Educa-tion,” nearly 12 percent picked a “Pro-fessional” program (medicine, nursing,architecture, etc.), almost nine percentlisted “Engineering,” nearly as many se-lected one of the natural sciences, andthe rest were either undecided or pickedother fields.At first blush, the percentage of in-coming students selecting a political sci-ence major appears slightly higher thanin recent years. An increase in the per-centage of first-year students intendingto major in political science meshes withdata from APSA’s survey of politicalscience departments in 1998 –1999(Mann 2001). About two percent offreshmen intended to declare a politicalscience major in 1998 (1.8 percent ofmen and 2.1 of women [Sax et al.1998]), while 2.2 percent of all first-yearstudents said they would become politi-cal science majors in 1999 (the percent-age of women and men was identical[Sax et al. 1999]). Since increased inter-est in political science as a major and adepartment in which to take courses isassociated with presidential campaigns(Mann 2001), one ought to anticipatesome increased interest in political sci-ence in the 2000 survey.Unhappily, there are technical prob-lems when we seek to compare trends inmajor declarations. According to HERI’sstaff (2001), the 2.8 percent figure fromthe 2000 survey “cannot be compared toprevious years, as we did not includecommunity colleges in this year’s results,only Baccalaureate Institutions.” Eventu-ally HERI will release data making iteasier to compare 2000 to earlier sur-veys. For now, one should note that ex-cluding two-year institutions enhancesthe percentage of students saying theyintend to major in the humanities andsocial sciences, including political sci-ence.A longer perspective also cautionsagainst being too sanguine. HERI datafrom the late 1970s to the mid-1990sshow no growth in the percentage ofincoming first-year students picking po-litical science as a prospective major(Astin et al. 1997, 51–52). In 1995,HERI reported that 3.4 percent of allfirst-year students planned to declare apolitical science major (Sax et al. 1995).Surveys of political science departmentshave shown substantial declines in stu-dents majoring in political science and instudents enrolling in its courses (Mann1996). Mann’s analysis of HERI reportsshows declines between 1986 and 1995in the percentage of first-year studentsintending to major in political science(1996, 531).In short, although HERI’s 2000 reportmay offer political scientists some satis-faction, over the longer run the Insti-tute’s data and those from APSA’s sur-veys of departments do not. A smallpercentage of students entering collegeor university intends to major in politicalscience. At least for now, and judged interms of freshmen claiming they intendto major in political science, the disci-pline’s future is static. Political scientistsneed to understand that, in straightenedeconomic circumstances, college