A Summit Hill native who spent decades of work in support of academic survey research was recently honored at the University of Indiana, Bloomington, when he was presented the first Association of Academic Survey Research Organization's Achievement Award.

The work of John M. Kennedy, who grew up on Ludlow Street in Summit Hill, attended the former St. Joseph Parochial School in that town and graduated in 1964 from Marian High School, was further recognized by the association which named the award in Kennedy's name.Kennedy is an emeritus senior researcher and the former longtime director of the Indiana University Center for Survey Research. He is the son of the late Edward and Mary (Vorsteg) Kennedy of Summit Hill.He directed the IU Center for Survey Research from 1987 until his retirement earlier this year. The center provides survey services to university faculty, government agencies, media and nonprofit organizations.Under his leadership, the center helped to launch the widely-cited National Survey of Student Engagement, an Internet and postal survey of college and university undergraduates at more than 750 U.S. and Canadian schools.NSSE, which began in 1999, now covers a sample of more than two million students. The Center for Survey Research also carries out the Law School Survey of Student Engagement, in which more than 80 law schools participate.After his graduation from Marian, Kennedy began his undergraduate studies at Pennsylvania State University, but later put the studies on hold while he joined the Army, subsequently serving in Vietnam. Following his military service, he earned a bachelor of science degree in 1972 from the University of Maryland and later earned a master of arts degree from Penn State. He worked for the U.S. Census Bureau for four years before returning to Penn State, where he received his doctorate degree in sociology in 1984.Under Kennedy's guidance, IU's Department of Sociology developed the Center for Survey Research that became a world class survey center. In 2002, it was selected to conduct the American National Election Survey, a sign to the survey research community that the CSR was among the best in the world and that Kennedy's technical, management and survey skills were responsible for it having attained that status.Among the many other ventures he headed was a series of NASA funded projects. In 1987, he and Thomas Pinnelli, a doctoral student in the School of Library and Information Science, launched a NASA series that surveyed aerospace engineers, scientists and students in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Together, they produced over 80 papers and technical reports that were included in a two-volume book on the diffusion of knowledge in the aerospace industry.Kennedy served as president (1997-98) of the Society for Applied Sociology and has been active in the American Sociological Association (ASA) for 30 years. Because of his longstanding interest in research ethics and integrity, he chaired the ASA committee that drafted its current ethics code.For many years, he convened other directors of academic survey research organizations during the conferences of the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) to further its mission to the community. When these directors formally established AAPOR, its executive committee created AASRO's funded John M. Kennedy Acghievement Award, honoring the former local man by making him the first director to receive the award.Upon the presentation, AASRO President Yasamin Miller cited "the lasting impact that John leaves on the academic survey research community and AASRO," to which Thomas Guterbock, chauirman of the achievement award committee, added, "John's tireless service to the research survey profession is outstanding. Few people can claim to have made such important contributions to our field in such a variety of ways. We are so pleased to honor John as the first recipient of the AASRO Achievement Award and give the award his name."