Robert Dahnke
Political Science & Policy Studies

For the past year, I have worked with Dr. Bob Stein, Lena Gohlman Fox Professor of Political Science, who was recently named Director of the Center for Civic Engagement. My research has included a diverse range of projects: evacuation effectiveness, local elections, and analysis of SafeClear – an innovative program for the removal of disabled vehicles from freeways in Houston. The SafeClear program is a creative and sometimes controversial program started by Houston Mayor Bill White in January 2005. Under SafeClear, disabled vehicles are immediately removed from the highways in the city by tow contractors assigned to specific zones. This prevents pile-ups, rubbernecking, etc., along with all of the additional safety concerns that those events present. From data gathered about the program, which included over 60,000 cases to analyze, we were able to study the program’s effectiveness (i.e., reduction in collisions attributable to the program) and operator performance (i.e., response time). With this data, we were able to provide the City of Houston with the evaluation it needed and offer recommendations to improve the program. People always talk about how academics learn in an “ivory tower”. With community-based research like mine, you can’t do that. You have to go out and engage the world. The research I have been a part of has allowed me to apply the data analysis skills I have learned in my classes. It’s one thing to read about statistics in a book; it’s entirely different to analyze real data, knowing your work will have an appreciable and immediate effect. The amount of interaction the faculty has with undergraduate students at Rice is also really unique. Students are going to have varying interests, but the one aspect that defines undergraduate life at Rice is that all students have the chance to explore their interests at the highest levels. The most rewarding aspect of my research experience is that is has actually affected governmental policy in my hometown. In the spring of 2006, I won First Place in the Social Sciences at the Rice Undergraduate Research Symposium (along with Megan Schneider) for work on the Hurricane Rita evacuation and how to improve the success of future evacuations. This work has resulted in a paper (pending) as well as recommendations directly to policy makers (e.g. Houston-Galveston Area Council, a regional planning organization)..