2002-2003 Annual Report

The California State University



SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH AND INSTRUCTIONAL COUNCIL

(SSRIC)



http://ssdba.calstatela.edu/ssric/index.htm

31TH Annual Report



Richard A. Shaffer (CPSU, SLO), Chair, 2002-2003

 

Origin and Mission

The Social Science Research and Instructional Council is the oldest of the disciplinary councils in the California State University system. It began in 1972 as an advisory group to the Office of Information Resources and Telecommunications. Today, the Council continues its liaison with the Chancellor's Office and is dedicated to assisting CSU social science students and faculty in their learning, teaching, and research.

Goals

The Council develops and coordinates programs to extend the quantitative skills of faculty and students by

  • providing a forum for sharing information about social science data and computer products;

  • initiating and conducting training programs;

  • recommending computerized social science projects in the CSU curriculum;

  • encouraging the collection and distribution of social science data and computer-related instructional and research materials;

  • supporting CSU’s membership in the ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, University of Michigan) and its on-going relationship with The Field Institute (San Francisco), one of the two major polling organizations in California;

  • advising CSU administrators on policies related to providing quantitative social science data for research and instruction; and collaborating with the Social Science Data Base Archive (at CSU Los Angeles) to provide instructional workshops, maintain a user-friendly web site for access to SSRIC instructional materials, and to make available to students and faculty a wide variety of social science data bases.



Meeting Schedule for 2002-2003

  •             October 25-26, 2002,

    Sonoma State University

  •             February 21-22, 2003,

    CPSU, San Luis Obispo

  •             April 25-26, 2003,

    San Francisco State University

     

Highlights of 2002-2003 Activities

The Twenty-Seventh Annual SSRIC Student Research Conference was held on the campus of San Francisco State University on April 25. Forty-eight students presented their work in sixteen papers, one of the largest turnouts in years.   Professor Emeritus Richard DeLeon of San Francisco State University and author of Left Coast City: Progressive Politics in San Francisco, 1975-1991 was the keynote speaker.

  • The Betty Nesvold Award for best graduate paper went to Chien-Sheng Chan of San Francisco State University.

  • The Charles McCall Award for best undergraduate paper went to Christina Brown, of CSU, Bakersfield.

  • The Gloria Rummels Award for best use of archived data from the SSDBA went to Michelle Johnson of CSU, Fresno.

Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)  The biennial ICPSR meeting is scheduled for October, 2003.  Nan Chico (CSU, Hayward) and John Korey (CSPU, Pomona) of the SSRIC have infiltrated the ICPSR and are a part of the ICPSR Subcommittee on Instructional Materials (SIMI).  They are working on an ICPSR web cite on teaching resources similar to the SSRIC/CSU Teaching Resource Depository housed at CSU, Bakersfield. (see below). 

The Field Institute / California Poll subcommittee recommended that Sandra Emerson  (CSPY, Pomona) be allowed to place her questions on corruption and questionable behavior be place in one of the upcoming California Polls.  The subcommittee also recommended that Alexandra Cole (CSU, Northridge) receive the Field Institute Faculty Fellowship for her proposal on post-materialist values. 

The Twenty-Sixth Annual Field Institute Workshop was held on September 13, 2002 in San Francisco.  Presentations were made on topics relating to public opinion research and California politics, and academic representatives meet with Mark DiCamillo and reviewed the Field Institute plans for the upcoming year.

SSDBA – The SSRIC, requested that the Chair send CSU, LA Vice President for Information Technology Systems Peter Quan a memo expressing its concern over the performace of the SSDBA and the cost of membership considering the changes in technology.  Discussions are continuing on these issues.

Teaching Resource Depository SSRIC members Jim Ross (CSU, Bakersfield), Ed Nelson (CSU, Fresno) and Nan Chico (CSU, Hayward), have redesigned the Teaching Resource Depository (http://www.csub.edu/~jross/projects/ssricrem/welcome.html), including a new section with teaching modules on critical thinking.  Also, Nan Chico recently converted the SSRIC sponsored SPSS for Windows, Ver. 11 Tutorial (Edward Nelson, Nan Chico, Laura Hecht, Elizabeth Nelson, James Ross, and Linda Fiddler) into html format and placed it on the Teaching Resource Depository web site.

  Chancellor’s Office Once again, the principal issue confronting the SSRIC during the 2002-2003 year, as was the case in many previous years, was the continued funding of the ICPSR, Roper, and Field Institute contracts by the Chancellor’s Office, although funding was guaranteed by the Chancellor’s Office several years ago.  Recent assurances by the Chancellor’s Office that “Funding has been secured for ‘03/’04”, the year ended with the Chancellor’s Office attempting to shift some of the funding to the campuses via their subscriptions to the SSDBA. 

2003-2004 SSRIC Meetings will be as follows:

  • October 24-25, CSU, Sacramento

  •             February 13-14, CSU, San Diego

  • April 30-May1, CSPU, Pomona (Student Research Conference.)

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