of Non-Respondent Follow-Up Letter

ATTACHMENT 9

The Survey of Earned Doctorates conducted by the National Opinion Research Center

1 North State St., 16^th Floor Chicago, Illinois 60602 Phone: 800-248-8649 Fax: 800-684-0704

«suid»

«fname» «lname»

«street»

«unit»

«city» «state» «zip»-«zip4»

<<Date>>

Dear Dr. <<lname>>:

Congratulations on completing your doctorate!

Because of this accomplishment, I am writing to ask you to complete a brief survey conducted each year by the National Science Foundation and five other federal agencies that is critical to understanding in what specialty areas doctorates are produced and their post-graduation employment plans. Results are used by government as well as academic institutions to make decisions about graduate education funding, developing new programs and supporting existing ones.

We would greatly appreciate your completing this questionnaire on our secure web server. To do that, go on-line to https://websurvey.norc.org/sed2010

and provide your PIN: <<$pin>>

followed by your password: <<$password>>.

If it is inconvenient for you to complete the survey on the Web, please contact us at 1-800-248-8649 or send an e-mail to sed@norc.uchicago.edu to request a paper version. I want to assure you that all the information you provide is kept confidential. Any information publicly released will be in a form that does not personally identify you.

The Survey of Earned Doctorates is an annual census, begun in 1958, of all research doctorate recipients in the United States. It is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and five other Federal agencies. The data are collected for the National Science Foundation by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago.

We would be happy to talk to you about any questions or concerns that you might have about the survey. Please feel free to contact us using the 1-800 number or e-mail listed above. Summary reports on earlier surveys are available at http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/sed.

Congratulations again, on completing your doctorate, and best wishes for the future.

Sincerely,

Mark K. Fiegener, Ph.D.

SED Project Manager

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