2008 Woodie Awards
MIPO chief balances polling with student needs
James Marconi
Issue date: 11/2/06 Section: News
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The rest is history. The Marist Poll was one of a handful in the country, and soon became involved in state and then national elections. Since then, Miringoff described himself and MIPO as perpetually busy. "We're always a project-and-a-half behind," he said.
Students and staff flow in and out of his office with questions and concerns, and hand-scrawled sheets of paper detail phone calls to be made and future activities of MIPO to be coordinated. When it's busy, he remarked that he might have to do 25 interviews over the phone.
Even Miringoff's professional but intensely personal office space mirrors his workday. Books, mostly with political titles, fill a quarter of the left wall. Right next to the bookshelf lay neat stacks of cassette tapes, each of a television interview. The inner doorknob is nearly invisible beneath a collection of press passes from various political and journalistic conferences.
He probably wouldn't want it any other way. Politics in general has always been a part of his life. "I grew up in a house where politics and current events were discussed daily," Miringoff said. Since becoming a teacher at Marist in 1975, he has further indulged and developed that connection.
"I like election day the best. It's hard, it's physically demanding, but it's a lot of fun. The next best thing [about my job] is the idea of connecting people. It [MIPO] is sort of plugging students into the whole experience, which is the biggest ongoing positive."
A balancing act between the worlds of teaching and professional polling might seem impossible, but "they're not as distinct as they appear," Miringoff said. "I bring up some of the same people that I would be meeting in the polling world [to class]." Many of his students end up working as interns and then employees of these media figures. Eventually, some former students come back to class to teach the next generation, completing the cycle.
And that, according to Miringoff, is what he and MIPO are all about. It is a very gratifying experience, he said, to see students succeed in such a concrete, tangible way. Theory taught in a classroom is fine, but actually doing a poll and seeing the results on television, well, that's something special. "Since 1978 when we started, it has been a student education project; the education has always been what's paramount."
He placed his phone back in its cradle and began typing up a midterm exam.
Students and staff flow in and out of his office with questions and concerns, and hand-scrawled sheets of paper detail phone calls to be made and future activities of MIPO to be coordinated. When it's busy, he remarked that he might have to do 25 interviews over the phone.
Even Miringoff's professional but intensely personal office space mirrors his workday. Books, mostly with political titles, fill a quarter of the left wall. Right next to the bookshelf lay neat stacks of cassette tapes, each of a television interview. The inner doorknob is nearly invisible beneath a collection of press passes from various political and journalistic conferences.
He probably wouldn't want it any other way. Politics in general has always been a part of his life. "I grew up in a house where politics and current events were discussed daily," Miringoff said. Since becoming a teacher at Marist in 1975, he has further indulged and developed that connection.
"I like election day the best. It's hard, it's physically demanding, but it's a lot of fun. The next best thing [about my job] is the idea of connecting people. It [MIPO] is sort of plugging students into the whole experience, which is the biggest ongoing positive."
A balancing act between the worlds of teaching and professional polling might seem impossible, but "they're not as distinct as they appear," Miringoff said. "I bring up some of the same people that I would be meeting in the polling world [to class]." Many of his students end up working as interns and then employees of these media figures. Eventually, some former students come back to class to teach the next generation, completing the cycle.
And that, according to Miringoff, is what he and MIPO are all about. It is a very gratifying experience, he said, to see students succeed in such a concrete, tangible way. Theory taught in a classroom is fine, but actually doing a poll and seeing the results on television, well, that's something special. "Since 1978 when we started, it has been a student education project; the education has always been what's paramount."
He placed his phone back in its cradle and began typing up a midterm exam.
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