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6. Social Analysis

Ideally changes to the landscape would make it both more attractive and more useful to the community. One of our goals was to address social factors of the landscape's design and use in all proposed changes. The campus landscape fits certain functional constraints: namely, most of it can be walked across, and it meets a certain standard of attractiveness, defined by American culture. To be truly feasible, the alternative landscapes that we propose must take into account aesthetic preferences as well as practicality. To achieve these objectives, we seek to understand how a landscape's design affects how it is used and perceived.

6.1. Land Use To establish how the Harvey Mudd College community uses the landscape, a land use survey was designed. We asked students, faculty, and staff to mark on a large map of the college which areas of campus they use (Figure 6.1.1). Approximately 40 people participated in this survey, and the results can be seen in Figure 6.1.2. The areas on campus that are used the most often are Linde Field (1), the center of the campus's mall (2), and the small and secluded Baker Quiet Place (3). The only other areas that are used fairly often include the lawns around the dorms on the east side of campus. Additional uses of the campus were not taken into account by this survey. For example, the western half of the campus mall is used for occasional group picnics and for open-air classrooms, and is the site for graduation in the spring of each year. Taking all these uses into account allows us to determine pieces of the campus landscape that are good candidates for replacement in our proposed alternatives, such as the majority of the west side and the periphery of the campus, which are rarely used by the community. An alternative landscape may be instituted in these areas, as the grass does not provide a specific function. Furthermore, improvement to the low-use areas provides an opportunity to increase the landscape's overall functionality while improving environmental practicality and economic feasibility. As an example of such an improvement is the experimental garden the team constructed (Section 4).

Figure 6.1.1. Students participating in land-use survey by placing pins in a map of the Harvey Mudd campus.

 

Figure 6.1.2. Use density of various areas in the Harvey Mudd landscape as determined by the land use survey.
(1) Linde Field, (2) The Quad, (3) Baker Quiet Place.

6.2. Aesthetic Survey

To establish the connection between landscape and the community, we must understand people's aesthetic views. We conducted a survey on topics such as aesthetic attractiveness, usefulness, and comparison to hypothetical alternatives (e.g. native landscapes) to gauge these views. This survey was necessary in part because native landscape experts say such landscapes are unappreciated and not tolerated by the general population because of:

"Misperceptions or lack of knowledge of native landscaping: what it is, what it looks like (aesthetics), what it requires, how it is done, what it costs, and what its benefits and effects are. People are unaware of the great variety of native species (1500+ native plants to choose from, one for every area and purpose). People often fail to realize this diversity and the ability to compromise and to blend native and non-native plants appropriately in a sound ecological community." (Green Landscaping)

Because of these misperceptions and the often-negative view of native landscapes, we wanted to gauge the reactions of our community to the prospect of a more native landscape.

Experts suggest that in order for our proposals to be successful, we must analyze the prospect of a change on "all peoples whose self-definitions and landscapes include the physical environment in which the change is ... proposed to occur," (Greider and Garkovich). In light of their suggestions, we distributed the survey to the entire college community: students, parents, faculty, staff, alumni, and trustees. We hoped to use the outcome of the survey to see how we might avoid the pitfalls that have plagued other projects in their infant stages, as well as to see how the entire community perceives our project.

6.3. Aesthetic Survey Method

We distributed surveys to alumni and trustees at one of their bimonthly Board meetings in mid-March. All but a few trustees attend each Trustee meeting, and the alumni on the Alumni Board of Governors are elected to represent all 45 classes of alumni. For this reason, we believed that each board provided a representative sample. Each meeting's director distributed the surveys to their respective Boards. Unfortunately, the response was less than expected; we received 8 surveys (5 male and 3 female each) per group out of a possible 30, a 27% return rate.

The last important group to survey is prospective students. If the appearance of the campus does not appeal to potential students, they are unlikely to choose to attend and the college would lose the financial benefit of and the selectivity gained by admitting those students. Because prospective students are only on campus for a very short time, we found it infeasible to sample this population. Instead, we used the current student body as an approximation since they have all been prospective students in the recent past.

The whole sample consisted of 113 males (58%) and 83 females (42%), with two non-responses. Of the respondents, 153 were Caucasians (86%), 18 were Asian/ Pacific Islanders (10%), 6 were Latino (3%), and 2 were Black (1%). When asked about place of upbringing, 40 people responded an urban setting (21%), 119 suburban (62%), and 34 a rural setting (18%), with 5 non-responses. Lastly, divided by natural setting of upbringing, 37 respondents (22%) grew up in a desert setting, 47 respondents (28%) in a forest setting, 28 respondents (16%) in a plains setting, and 59 respondents (34%) in a coastal setting (Appendix K).

6.3.2. Survey Creation

In early drafts of the survey, we came up with a variety of questions that addressed many different landscape issues (Appendix I). At this stage in the creation of the survey, all the questions were open-ended; however, coding and analyzing the results of a sample of 200 would have been impractical. Thus we simplified the survey, following cues from the method described in Research Methods in Psychology (Shaughnessy and Zechmeister, 425), as suggested by psychology professor Margaret Kasimatis. With the help of Karen Yoshino, head of Harvey Mudd College Assessment, and statistical analyst Andrea Wulf, we found the best ways to ask difficult questions, the best way to order the survey, and how to make the survey easy to take. To shorten the survey, we then consolidated some questions and eliminated others that were repetitive. The final version contained only 10 content questions. Four community members took this survey to determine the clarity of the questions as well as the feasibility of a survey of such length. After assembling detailed comments from the pilot subjects, wording was fixed for precision purposes, final adjustments were made to make the survey more user-friendly, and the final survey was compiled (Appendix J).

Attempts were made to keep the survey unbiased, especially when asking questions dealing with issues we had strong opinions about (e.g. Question 8). It was important to ask such difficult questions, not to intimidate the respondents, but to make them think seriously about their landscape preferences.

6.3.3. Survey Goals

The goals of the survey were to collect data in four areas: people's ideals in a landscape, assessment of the current landscape, suggested improvements, and the amount of environmental awareness on campus.

To take into account the ideals that are currently held among the population, we asked questions to determine what parts of the landscape people enjoy and would like more of (Question 2). In addition we assessed the types of landscapes that the population perceives as beautiful and supporting the college's mission statement (Questions 5 and 6, and 9 respectively). We also asked in Question 10 if changing the landscape to a more native one would change people's decisions to work at, study at, or to donate money to Harvey Mudd. A negative view of a native landscape could have adverse financial effects and would constrain our alternatives.

We also assessed the population's view of the current campus. Question 1 asks the respondents to determine how well the landscape promotes seven aspects in which we were interested: a sense of community, interaction with the landscape, sports, study/meeting places, travel, connection with nature, and consciousness of the landscape's ecological impacts. Question 2 gives us an evaluation of how well the various landscape components do their job. We were also interested in whether or not people thought the landscape was functional and how it could be made more so.

Bourassa states, "The fact that [aesthetic] rules and strategies are variable leads to the important question of how they are changed." To be able to change the landscape, we needed to assess how the HMC community perceives the current landscape. Hence we included questions about the mission statement of Harvey Mudd, the students' understanding the impact of their work on society (Question 7), and some questions dealing with the community's perceptions of the landscape's role at the college (Question 4).

6.4. Aesthetic Survey Results and Discussion

As suggested by Dr. Karen Yoshino, the textbook Statistics, A Tool for Social Research (Healey) by was used as a guide for the statistical analyses of the data. In all calculations, significance is determined using p=.05. The following section summarizes and discusses the responses to each question. The complete survey responses are included in Appendix K.

Question 1 - Please evaluate how well the Harvey Mudd College landscape promotes ... (a) sense of community, (b) interaction with the landscape, (c) sports, (d) study/meeting places, (e) travel, (f) connection with nature, and (g) consciousness of the landscape's ecological impacts.

The survey population feels strongly that the campus is useful for sports and travel, but that the use of the campus for its educational opportunities (consciousness of ecological impacts) is limited (Figure 6.4.1).

 

Figure 6.4.1. How well the population thinks the campus promotes various ideals.
Scale from 1 (poorly) to 5 (well).

 

Question 2 - Please rate the amount of _________ in the current Harvey Mudd College landscape. [List of 30 objects includes evergreen trees, flowering shrubs, meeting areas, birds, lawn area]

Because these questions only determine independent perceptions of each landscape element, these responses can only be used singularly; that is, we cannot combine responses to conclude we should remove evergreen trees and replace them with flowering shrubs. However, we can see how people view the various landscape elements of the Harvey Mudd landscape (Figure 6.4.2).

On a scale of 1 (too little) to 5 (too much) only 7 of the 30 items surveyed received a rating higher than 3, "just right". The seven that were judged to be too prevalent in this case are open lawn areas, hard-surfaced walkways, large flat surfaces, green ground cover, bark mulch beds, green areas, and paths/walkways. These responses agree with research that found people prefer complexity in their landscape (Schutte and Malouffe). The seven elements considered too plentiful are all categorically monotonous, and all other elements surveyed would increase the diversity of landscape elements that we have on campus. In addition to the general view of banality in the campus's landscape, several other particular responses stood out. Respondents overwhelmingly felt that the campus is lacking in native plants, birds, and animals. With more concerted efforts to place native plants around campus, we attract a wider biodiversity of birds and animals than currently. In addition, there were calls for more seating, meeting, and secluded areas on campus. Secluded areas need not be unsafe--a concern raised by a number of respondents. If the campus is relandscaped with more "nooks and crannies", as one respondent suggested, the campus would be more useful to the residents.

 

Figure 6.4.2. The survey population's perception of the desirable amounts of
various landscape elements, on a scale from 1 (not enough) to 5 (too many).

Question 3 - Please list as many ways you think HMC's outdoor spaces could be improved to encourage use.

As described in Appendix J, we grouped the responses into eight specific areas: increased places to sit, increased meeting/secluded areas, increased shaded areas, reduced grass dampness, increased color and aesthetics, increased trees, increased native plantings, and increased concrete maintenance (Figure 6.4.3).

 

Figure 6.4.3. Number of respondents suggesting various methods to increase land use.

To make the landscape more functional the respondents suggested introducing more seating, meeting, and shaded areas on campus, making the campus much more useful for studying, talking, and relaxing outdoors. In creating these areas, it is likely that trees will be added to partition the open areas in some way, another concern of many respondents. Ten respondents also signaled that much of the time the grass is too wet to sit on or use. As shown in Section 5, the grass is watered much more than is necessary, so this problem would be alleviated by proper watering techniques. A few people suggested that there should be more color and native plants, making the campus more inviting to wander around in and adding to the current functionality of travel that it now possesses (see Question 1). Lastly, there are some places on campus that could benefit from some repair or remodeling--concrete lips in the middle of the quad cause people to trip, and broken concrete in the sidewalks impedes progress, (especially for people using rollerblades, skateboards, or wheelchairs). We found these suggestions to be a good start for creating an alternative scenario.

Question 4 - Please indicate how much you agree or disagree with the following statements:
(a) I like the HMC landscape the way it is, and I wouldn't like it changed.
(b) Landscape is important in the overall impression of a college.
(c) HMC's landscape should use technological innovation and resource conservation.
(d) Institutional landscapes should reflect their local natural environment.
(e) Promoting biodiversity is important to me.
(f) Having the HMC landscape simple and linear is consistent with its function.
(g) The HMC landscape has places where I can sit and be refreshed.
(h) Southern Californians should be more concerned about water conservation.
(i) I am concerned about pesticides and think HMC should minimize their use.

Question 4 queried the respondents perceptions about the function of landscapes in general, the HMC landscape in particular, and several environmental issues (Figure 6.4.4). The results show that the respondents agreed strongly (mean response >4) with statements 4b (Landscape is important in overall impression), 4c (HMC should use technological innovation and conserve resources), and 4h (Southern Californians should be concerned with water conservation). They also agreed, although less strongly (mean response >3) with statements 4e (Promoting biodiversity is important), 4f (HMC's simple, linear landscape is consistent with its function), and 4i (HMC should minimize pesticide use). Lastly, respondents generally disagreed with statement 4a (Like HMC as it is and don't want it changed). Therefore it appears that people would be open to new ideas for the campus landscape.

 

Figure 6.4.4. The average response of the survey population to landscape function, HMC's landscape,
and environmental concerns, based on a scale from 1 (disagree strongly) to 5 (agree strongly).

Question 5 - Think about the most and least beautiful places in the world. If you were to rate HMC's landscape on a scale from (1) being the least beautiful, to (10) being the most beautiful, what score would you give it?

Respondents rated the Harvey Mudd landscape average (mean response of 5.0) in terms of its beauty (Figure 6.4.5).

 

Figure 6.4.5. Number of respondents answering how beautiful the Harvey Mudd
College landscape is on a scale from 1 (most ugly) to 10 (most beautiful).

Question 6 - Please rate the pictures on the following pages using the same scale, (1) being the least beautiful to (10) being the most beautiful.

The five photos presented below represent different types of landscape that may be considered for implementation at Harvey Mudd College. The pictures are of green groundcover, a formal garden, an unordered native garden, the current Harvey Mudd landscape, and a rock demonstration garden (Figure 6.4.6). To determine any significant preference, we used the ANOVA test as described in Chapter 12 of Statistics (Healey).

6a		6b		6c
	6d		6e

Figure 6.4.6. Landscapes rated by survey respondents for beauty and fit to HMC's mission (Questions 6 and 7). 6a = Green ground cover and small trees (Chino Water Basin Demonstration Garden), 6b = Formal garden, 6c = Naturalistic native shrub garden (Pitzer College), 6d = Open lawn area at Harvey Mudd College, and 6e = Demonstration rock garden (Chino Water Basin Demonstration Garden).

Determined by the Tukey ANOVA test, respondents significantly preferred landscape 6b (formal garden) over all other landscapes except landscape 6a (green ground cover and trees). All landscapes except 6c (naturalistic native shrubs) were significantly preferred over the HMC landscape (Figure 6.4.7). The population preferred landscape 6b, but did they feel that this landscape best reflected Harvey Mudd's mission? Question 7 addressed this issue.

 

Figure 6.4.7. The average response of the survey population as to how beautiful the
landscapes 6a to 6e are, based on a scale from 1 (most ugly) to 10 (most beautiful).

Question 7 - Which of the previous landscapes (6a - 6e) most clearly reflect Harvey Mudd College's claims to leadership in science and technology as well their relationships in society? (check all that apply)

In this question we counted the number of times each landscape was chosen as representative of Harvey Mudd's mission statement (Figure 6.4.8). Of those who responded, there was a large positive response to landscape 6e, the rock garden. Many respondents left this question blank. Unfortunately we could not determine whether the boxes were left unchecked because the survey takers could not choose, or because they decided that no landscape fit the mission statement. Respondents may not have had enough information to choose. For instance, there was no explicit indication of whether they conserved resources or used technological innovation--two features that the respondents would like to see in the HMC landscape.

 

Figure 6.4.8. Number of respondents who marked that the landscapes
in Figure 6.4.6 represented HMC's mission statement.

Question 8 - Given scenarios A and B for two landscapes that were exactly the same otherwise, please rate on a scale from 1 to 10 where your ideal landscape would fall.

This question was designed to assess the trade-offs that people are willing to make between having lawns in the landscape and using less water (Figure 6.4.9). From this question we determined that people would prefer more native plants and flowers and low water use (Scenario B) to more turf and high water use (Scenario A). Although we tried to remove bias from this question, many respondents felt that the question was indeed biased, and after further discussion, we determined that for a true trade-off question we would need to do a trade off between "lawn + 600,000 gallons" and "no lawn + 100,000 gallons" because people may have chosen Scenario B not for the water savings, but for the flowers and color of which there is currently little in the landscape. If we had to do the survey again, the rewording would be a necessary change.

 

Figure 6.4.9. Number of respondents answering where on a scale from 1 to 10 they prefer a landscape
to lie; with the response 1 representing scenario A and the response 10 representing scenario B.

Question 9 - Does the current HMC landscape fit the college well in your opinion? How would you describe the way the landscape fits Harvey Mudd College?

This, the second free response question, had two halves. We first assessed if the response was affirmative or negative in general. Ninety-two people gave an affirmative response while 29 people gave a negative response. We then evaluated the reasons each response was given. The major reasons given that the campus fit the landscape were because of its simplicity, functionality, aesthetic value, conformity, ugliness, and dullness. The major reasons for not fitting the campus were for its lack of resource consciousness, its lack of native plants, its dullness, and its disregard of the mission statement (Figure 6.4.10).

 

Figure 6.4.10. Reasons survey respondents felt the Harvey Mudd landscape did or did not fit the college:
(a) Reasons given by respondentswho thought the landscape fit the college,
(b) Reasons given by respondents who thought the landscape not fit the college.

The most interesting thing about these data is the negativity of 12 of the "yes" respondents who said that the landscape fits because of its dullness and ugliness. Looking at these "negative positive" responses together with the 18 respondents who stated that the landscape fits but could be much better at resource conservation than current practices suggests that alternatives may not only be accepted but would also be appreciated by the general population.

Question 10 - What kind of effect would a more native, water-efficient landscape at Harvey Mudd College have on you? [Each cohort was asked a different question as outlined in Table 6.4.1]

This question is the most important in determining the feasibility of our project. Its intent was to determine what the community's reaction would be to a more native landscape, on a scale from 1 (negative) to 3 (positive). As each cohort will be influenced differently, we asked 4 different questions - one appropriate for each cohort (Table 6.4.1).

The major impressions given by these data are that students are mostly neutral or unaffected by the prospect of a change, parents are generally in favor of such a change, and in each cohort, the positive responses outweigh the negative. This evidence suggests that the college would not suffer any negative financial effects from a change to a more native landscape, in that there would be no monetary loss to a reduction in the student population, or a loss in selectivity, no loss to the pool of faculty or staff applicants, and no loss in donations from alumni and trustees.

6.5. Further Discussion

6.5.1.Age Analysis

In the future, we may do an analysis on the differences in preferences in our widely varied sample. For example, the age distribution of our sample was very broad (Figure 6.5.1).

 

Figure 6.5.1. Age Distribution of Respondents

There is a historical reason why we might expect there to be little difference between age group response. Zube et al. found "three distinct age-clusters of scenic quality assessment" (124), 6-11 years of age, 12-65 years of age, and more than 65 years old. Our sample contains no members of the first age-cluster and only two of the last, so there should be little difference in landscape preference between age groups.

We did a preliminary analysis comparing age distribution to landscape preference. As there was a bimodal distribution, we looked for a difference in landscape preference (Question 6) between the two groups: 15-30 and 31-80. In comparing the means (Table 6.5.1), we see that there is little difference in preference for the non-native looking landscapes 6a, 6b, and 6d, but in the two more native landscapes 6c and 6e, there is a larger gap in average preference. Although these two differences are larger than the other three, they are not a statistically significant. Seeing these differences leads to an interesting question: Is the older population more willing to accept a native landscape than the younger population, and if so, for what reasons? This would be a good topic for future work.

6.5.1. Location of Upbringing Analysis

A second area of analysis that should be considered is an analysis by place of upbringing. The population was broken into four groups by each subject's scenery of upbringing (Figure 6.5.2). The four groups given were Forest, Desert, Plains, and Coast.

 

Figure 6.5.2. Pie Chart of Respondents' Setting of Upbringing

Comparing the mean responses, when looking at the differences in these groups, the largest difference in scenery preferences occurs between respondents that grew up in the plains and those that grew up on the coast (Table 6.5.2). In those from the plains, the average responses are much less skewed between the 5 scene types than with the other three groups.

Although the respondents originating from the plains seem to have a larger difference in their preferences than the other three groups, the difference is not statistically significant by the ANOVA test. Further research (and more cases) would be necessary to establish such a result. On the other hand, these preliminary results show that those coming from the plains may be the most affected by a change in Harvey Mudd's landscape, as they were the population that preferred the landscape in 6d (Harvey Mudd) the most.

This demographic question aimed to discover how familiar people were with the various landscapes. A more direct approach would produce cleaner results. In studies by Purcell et al. and Lyons, a familiarity scale was used for each landscape to determine how familiar a person is with each scene (Purcell et al., Lyons). By creating a familiarity scale, we would be able to establish if a person familiar with a landscape would have more of a preference for it. Such a study would be a good area for future work to see exactly how much an unfamiliar setting would detract from the Harvey Mudd landscape in terms of the community's perceptions.

We also analyzed for possible differences in gender for questions 2, 3, and 10. Although we were expecting some difference in response, no significant difference between the genders was identified.

6.6. Conclusions

This survey strongly suggests that the community would not be opposed to a change in the landscape. In addition, there were many calls for a more resource conserving approach to the landscape on campus. The population also had many suggestions to improve the campus. The most evident was the need for more functional areas on campus, allowing students to be outdoors, feel more of a sense of community, to use the campus for more than just travel and sports.

This analysis allows us to present recommendations to the master planning committee that take into account students' and other community members' opinions on campus landscape. This survey is also the first step in our publication to the community, in that it presents them with new ideas in relation to the landscape. Many people had not thought about the landscape before taking the survey; some commented afterwards that they noticed something new about the landscape the whole week after taking our survey.

The main goal of conducting this survey was to contribute to the entire cost-benefit analysis by determining the campus community's reaction to any plan that we may propose. Analysis of responses to Question 10 suggests that there would be no negative financial effects of such a project.

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