Abstract
Examining post-election statements made by UC System, UT-Austin, and UW-Madison executive leadership, this study employs word frequency, collocation, and a three-pronged latent semantic analysis to...
Highlights
After the Presidential Election on 8 November 2016, many institutions of higher education (IHEs) across the United States witnessed their executive leadership release post-election statements to comment on the implications of a Donald Trump presidency on their respective campus(es)
The purpose of this study was to analyze post-election statements released by three postsecondary leaders in California, Texas, and Wisconsin, all of whom voted dissimilarly in the 2016 US Presidential Election, as California voted Democratic or “blue,” Texas voted Republican or “red,” and Wisconsin was split or “purple.” My findings suggest that all three statements defined campus community differently, while the election results may have effected how these statements were composed
This study focuses on three public flagship leaders in three different sociopolitical climates to answer the question: given diverse political climates, what is the purpose and function of a post-election statement made by postsecondary executive leadership? To answer this question, I performed a word frequency, collocation, and three-pronged latent semantic analysis (LSA) of each executive leader’s post-election statement to analyze the associative diction, major concepts, and institutional priorities expressed by said leadership
Summary
After the Presidential Election on 8 November 2016, many institutions of higher education (IHEs) across the United States witnessed their executive leadership release post-election statements to comment on the implications of a Donald Trump presidency on their respective campus(es). Napolitano and the Chancellors of the UC System posted their statement to the UC System website on 9 November (Napolitano & Chancellors of the University of California, 2016), UW-Madison Chancellor Blank posted a statement to her institutionally sponsored blog “Blank’s Slate” on the same day (Blank, 2016), and five days later, UT-Austin President Fenves issued a statement via campus-wide email on 14 November (Fenves, 2016) Situating these three leaders in the historical context of their institution’s home provides a fertile soil for the analysis of these leaders’ post-election statements. The UC System, UT-Austin, and UW-Madison share a sociopolitical similitude in their respective local geographies, they lead public flagship universities in three states with radically divergent state-level political climates: “blue,” “red,” and “purple” states, respectively These three idiosyncratic relationships between each public flagship and the corresponding political climate in their state rendered the linguistic analysis of each executive leader’s post-election statement incredibly timely, relevant, and important. An analysis of this content could yield unique insight into how a public flagship leader views their campus political climate, understands the political relationship of their institution and its state, and articulates institution-specific beliefs during a time of sociopolitical turmoil and uncertainty
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