To:
From: "Marian Matheson" <mfmatheson@amherst.edu>
Subject: Your Feedback is Needed

Dear [Freshman's First Name]:

Welcome to Amherst College!

As the Director of Institutional Research at Amherst College, I lead
the efforts to more fully understand the issues that affect our
students and other groups.  I will, on occasion, ask you to
participate in a survey, interview or focus group project.  These
projects are designed to give the faculty and administration better
insights on your expectations and experiences.  This is the first of
those requests.  I am asking you to read the rest of this message and
then to complete a survey.

The CIRP Freshman Survey is conducted at many colleges and
universities across the country.  The Survey asks Amherst students
several questions about high school activities, goals for college, and
plans after graduation.  The administration pays close attention to
this information, and values your input.

The online version of this survey will be conducted by the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and coordinated by the Higher
Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los
Angeles.  Amherst has provided your email address and other
information to these institutions for purposes of conducting the
survey.  You will have the opportunity at the beginning of the survey
to decide how much information about yourself you would like to share
with the researchers that oversee the survey and administrators at
Amherst.  Your responses will be completely confidential and no
personally identifiable information will be attributed to you without
your explicit permission.  To access the survey, please click on the
following link:

[URL]

This is a unique link assigned to you.  For this reason, it is
important that you do not share it or forward this e-mail. The survey
consists of seven linked sections; please complete all sections so
that we have a record of your full set of responses. This survey takes
approximately 20-25 minutes to complete.  We encourage you to fill out
the survey as soon as possible, but allow enough time to complete it
in one sitting.  If you encounter any problems while taking the
survey, please contact me at mfmatheson@amherst.edu.

Thank you for providing this feedback to Amherst! We greatly
appreciate your help.  If you have any questions about this project,
please feel free to contact me at mfmatheson@amherst.edu or 413
542-5187.

Sincerely,

Marian Matheson
Director of Institutional Research
102AA Converse Hall