Mindy Rhindress
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Office: Powdermaker Hall 252
Phone: (718) 997-2828
Email: M.Rhindress@srbi.com
Dr. Rhindress is an Assistant Adjunct Professor in the graduate division where her focus is on survey research methods. Currently her classes cover survey design and execution; how to use surveys to best meet client social policy and marketing goals; marketing research analytical techniques; and communication in the professional survey research field.
She has particular interest in transportation and other urban planning issues. Her dissertation, titled “THE END OF THE LINE: The Relationship between New York City’s Subway System and Residential Class Structure” examined how commercial interests derail the opportunity for class equity in transit systems and, in particular, the extent to which these interests negatively influence the settlement patterns where transit serves. Using census and GIS (Geographic Information Systems), she was able to illustrate the development of living spaces as a function of subway introduction into communities, and several indices were computed to demonstrate population growth and class disparity. The results revealed that the early years of transit development were entrepreneurial efforts coordinated by business interests. Thus transit first provided significant benefits mostly to the middle and upper classes and gave them a reasonable means by which to escape horrible tenement living conditions. New settlements were stratified by class almost immediately after introduction. Years later subway’s influence on stratification lessened as the automobile was introduced and the once expensive and luxurious, but now more reasonably-priced and just functional public transit system finally befit the population much lower on the socioeconomic scale.
In addition to being a part-time faculty member, Dr. Rhindress is also very involved in the graduate program as advisor to the program. As part of a larger institutional review of the Queens College sociology department, her MA thesis examined the direct impact of the MA applied social research program on the career status and further academic pursuits of graduates. The findings suggested that the MA program was successful, either as a provider of skills that allow graduates to succeed in some of the best known social or market research firms, or as a stepping stone for further study in Ph.D. programs. The analysis was appended to a larger report and circulated among top CUNY officials.
When not at Queens, Dr. Rhindress holds the position of Senior Vice President at Abt SRBI, a nationally-recognized social and public policy research firm and a subsidiary of Abt Associates. Here in the private sector, she have more than thirty-five years of research experience as a principal investigator; contributing survey methodologist; transportation-research specialist; and managing director. And it is here where she founded the transportation research centers at two large marketing research firms and have led hundreds of transportation survey research projects covering program impact; traffic flows; mode share; performance satisfaction; facility evaluation; program and new initiative impact; image perceptions; and marketing assessment. Just completed was a year-long study for the National Academies on Understanding How to Motivate Communities to Support Public Transit, published in 2008.
Dr. Rhindress obtained her Ph.D. in sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center, and her MA in applied social research at Queens College.
“I encourage students who are interested in taking my courses to contact me by email with any questions.”
