UCO’s London Research Tour – 2023
By: J. David Chapman/May 18, 2023
I am on a trans-Atlantic flight to London as I write this week’s column. On our Boeing 777 are 12 student researchers from the University of Central Oklahoma. Our goal is to collect and analyze data in and on “third places.” On previous trips, we have researched redevelopment projects, privately owned public places (POPs), and gentrification effects of development in and around London.
In community building, the “third place” refers to the social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home (first place) and work (second place). Examples of “third places” are cafes, churches, clubs, bars, pubs, gyms, parks, or libraries.
Our first day of the tour will start out at Coventry University’s London Campus for basic training on research. The students will be exposed to multiple research methods and their applications by experienced researchers and Coventry faculty members Dr. Range, Mr. Fisher and Dr. McIlhatton. After the training session and description of the research project and methods that will be used, the students will attend a lecture on “third places” by Ms. Kelly Bogue, an expert and author on third places. We will end the day with a tour of the New Town Hall in Whitechapel, which opened in 1757 as a hospital. It’s a great building and recently renovated as a publicly accessible facility.
The next three days of the tour will be spent on the streets of London practicing interviewing techniques, surveying groups of citizens, performing observations of Londoners in their “third places,” and attending lectures on third places in London. Evenings are spent transcribing their notes from the interviews, surveys and observations. After the students have demonstrated a working knowledge of the research techniques, we will spend an entire day taking the transcribed notes and developing themes and summaries in which to interpret results from the data. These results will then be used to develop a presentation and poster to be presented the following day at the British Library to faculty, students and guests.
Once back in the U.S., these students will have the opportunity to present the results of their research at several conferences with the goal of publishing a paper in an academic journal. Those conferences are the 2024 Oklahoma Research Day at UCO in Edmond and the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Long Beach, California.
J. David Chapman is a professor of finance and real estate at the University of Central Oklahoma (jchapman7@uco.edu).