Volume 3, Number 3, May 2003

My How We Have Grown:
CMHER Subscribers from
2000 – 2003

by Trevor Richards

In the second issue of the Report (March/April 2000) we presented a profile of the Report’s Early Adopters. At that time there were 245 registered subscribers. Now, three years later, the Conflict Management in Higher Education Report has more than 800 such subscribers. The Report is freely available to non-subscribers, but those who have taken the time to register are provided with an announcement when new issues are posted. We thought it would be interesting to see how the subscriber base, our tried and true readership, has changed over the last three years.

When reviewing the data presented here, please be aware that not all subscribers choose to provide complete demographic information (it is optional), and the total number of people answering any question varies. In addition, some of the questions allowed people to provide more than one response so the total number of responses may be greater than the number of people who are registered subscribers to the Report.

In addition to a general overview of our subcribers, tables at the end of the article provide a review of the web traffic for the report from February 2002 to the present to shed some light on broader readership patterns. We changed web servers in early 2002, so we are basing these figures on traffic since the move.

What Roles Do Our Subscribers
Play on Campus?

While not all of our readers are based on campus, people working in higher education do comprise our target audience. We are thus quite happy to report that we have seen a substantial percentage increase in all our main target audiences of university/college students, faculty, and Conflict Resolution services staff. All of these groups have had at least a 240% increase (246, 281, and 456% respectively).

The table below shows the growth for each type of subscriber.

With respect to the overall composition of our subscribers, analysis reveals it has not changed very much since 2000. The largest change was a reduction in the overall percentage of subscribers who are ombuspersons and an increase in the percentage of subscribers who are administrators (up from 17% to 21%). The pie chart shown below illustrates the composition of our current college and university-based subscribers with respect to their roles.

What Kind of Conflict Handling
Experience Have We Got?

With respect to experiences working with conflicts on campus, the Report subscribers are a broadly experienced lot. At the launch of the Report and still today, the top 5 types of experience are as follows:

• Informal Mediators
• Informal Problem Solvers
• Formal Campus Mediators
• Mediator Trainers
• CR Skills Trainers

The table below presents all the various types of conflict handling experience listed by Report subscribers.

What Kind of Schools Do Our Subscribers Come From?

As the chart below shows, in both 2000 and 2003 more of our subscribers come from large (>20,000) or small schools (1,001-5,000) than from medium sized schools.

What Kind of Professional Associations
are We Involved With?

Our readers are involved in the full spectrum of conflict resolution and higher education professional associations, as the table below reveals.

© 2000-2005 William C. Warters & WSU, All rights reserved.