How the Data and Analytics Team Works to Provide Pivotal Data
The Data and Analytics team helped leaders across our university gain invaluable insights into WashU’s Economic Impact in the region. This data also sheds light on a key goal of the Here and Next Strategy, which is to contribute positively to our home community of St. Louis and to effect meaningful, constructive change in our world.
WashU provides jobs, taxes, and draws research dollars into the region, and Data and Analytics builds the bridge to the data needed to tell our story about being a driving force for local economic growth and development.
“(Data and Analytics) has had a fundamental impact on the Economic Impact report,” JoAnna Schooler, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Community & Local Government Relations at WashU, said.
Schooler and Robert Blaine, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Medical Public Policy at WashU, serve as members of the university’s Office of Government & Community Relations – the link between the university and governmental officials, neighborhood associations, and civic organizations.
Collaboration between the Office of Government & Community Relations and Data and Analytics brought invaluable clarity to complex data sets which enabled effective communication with those groups. Our team simplified data and analysis questions and gathered input for effective resolutions which benefitted Schooler and Blaine when communicating with stakeholders.
“The data that we requested is a key component to how the university demonstrates and communicates how it values and benefits the Saint Louis region, the state of Missouri and in some respects the state of the Illinois,” Blaine said. “So having that information organized and available, clear, concise, and easily accessible was most valuable.”
Data and Analytics provided technical expertise in data collection, organization, and synthesis, specifically in breaking down trends in geospatial data.
“Other institutions that do these reports often only issue them every four or five years or some longer stretch of time,” Blaine said. “I think we are somewhat unique and special that we are able to do that every year, and we’re able to do that because there’s a team that knows how to gather, assemble, and analyze this data for us.”
In short, our data is a difference maker in terms of how we tell our story.
“As an economic engine in our community and our region, there’s a lot of excitement around this. And the work that (Data and Analytics) has done is a fundamental and important element to us being able to do that well,” Schooler said.
Blaine and Schooler said they had their high expectations met, but they also teased out several enhancements that they’re interested in working on in the future, and as they’ve expressed those, there’s been feedback from the Data and Analytics team in terms of how we can get there and what sort of path and process we would need to get to those enhancements.
Our collaboration and communication are helping our partners always bring awareness to what is going on in the world of WashU data.
“The responsiveness, the circling back and closing the loop on open questions was very much appreciated and helpful in terms of how we all worked together on this on this effort,” Schooler said.
The project finished ahead of time, which allowed a handoff to our partners in university Marketing and Communications so that they could dig in sooner and start telling the story of WashU’s impact in our community.
“Often in the past, we haven’t been to this stage of being ready to publish…” Blaine said. “So not only to have it ready to go now is exciting, but I think we’re now to a place where that will be the process going forward. We get to start communicating this to the public, to policymakers – it’s exciting for us.”