1998-10-08: Fall 1998

Meeting of October 8-9, 1998, at CSU Hayward

Minutes

Present: Chico (Hayward), Nelson (Fresno), Lascher (Sacramento), Emenhiser (Humboldt), Gerber (San Diego), Korey (Pomona), Taketa (San Jose), Barkan (San Bernardino), Giventer (Stanislaus), Anagnoson (Los Angeles), Ebeling (Chico), Ross (Bakersfield), Turner (Northridge), Dixon (Sonoma), Jordan (Los Angeles -- Social Science Data Base Archive).

Absent: Cher Thomas (Chancellor's Office), Blue (Dominguez Hills), Gianos (Fullerton), Gossette (Long Beach), Tabb (San Francisco State University), Serpe/Risley (San Marcos), Shaffer (San Luis Obispo).



1. The agenda was approved.

2. Minutes approved for the Spring, 1998, meeting subject to the substitution of "May" for "February" at the top of page one in the sentence beginning with "Call to order."

3. Introductions: Larry Jordan was introduced as the Director of the Institutional Research office at Cal State Los Angeles, to which the Social Science Data Base Archive was recently transferred.

4. Announcement. Korey announced that he was seeking the names and email addresses of the social science chairs at each campus. These should be emailed to jlkorey@csupomona.edu

5. Mailing Lists: Korey and Nelson are maintaining several mailing lists, the Council itself, the list of research-interested faculty, the new list of social science chairs. Discussion ensued on who should maintain these lists. Decision: status quo to prevail for the present.

6. Student Research Conference: February 25, 1999, at CSU Sacramento. Ted Lascher is coordinating. Discussion re what kinds of papers are eligible; decision: social science, broadly conceived. Strong interest in analytical and quantitatively based papers. Ethnography and comparative case studies are fine. Paper abstracts are due by February 1, 1999. Papers themselves, to be considered for prizes, by 2/18/99, a week before the conference. Thursday layout to be traditional, with guest speaker -- suggestions:

Martha Farnesworth Riche, former director of the US Bureau of the Census, Elizabeth Hill, Legislative Analyst in Sacramento. Three $100 awards, as usual. Friday early a.m. there will be a talk/seminar, before the business meeting. Friday afternoon there will be a workshop with any SSRIC members who are there and local faculty from Sacramento State and nearby campuses.

Discussion of desire to get Monterey Bay to send students. Don Dixon will contact Monterey Bay faculty.

Also discussion of the need for recognition of the faculty members who have persuaded their students to give a paper at the convention. Perhaps a letter to the Dean/President of the home institution. Need to collect information from the students as to who the sponsoring faculty member is and the name and address of the Dean.

7. Archives: there is a box of SSRIC archives, including most minutes. Missing minutes are from the late 1980s (Spring 1985, Winter 1987, Spring 1989) and all those before February, 1975. There is a list of original ORs. Any ideas as to what to do with these?

8. SSRIC Homepage -- on the SSDBA. Seriously out of date. Korey announced that he had a new "test" homepage on his own page at http://www.csupomona.edu/pls/ssric/ssric1.html with an intention to move it to http://venus.calstatela.edu as soon as practicable. He and Jordan will work to coordinate the move.

9. AOF Grant -- the Social Science Teaching Resource Depository now consists of six teaching modules, Exercises, the SPSS text, Links to other Social Science teaching and research sites, downloads, and other teaching materials. http://www.csubak.edu/ssric/ Last Spring, regional workshops were presented, with 17 campuses represented. The grant is now over.

Workshops are to be presented at the California Sociological Association meetings in October, 1998, and the American Sociological Association meetings in 1998. Are there other conferences coming up where workshops could be presented? (Email ednelson@csufresno.edu or nchico@csuhayward.edu if there are). The site is now looking for classroom exercises; could each person at the meeting please contribute one exercise?

The Chancellor's Office has concerns over the sustainability of small AOF grants; this is a major issue with them.

Online syllabi are now to be added to the site, along with an ICPSR link to the site.

Field Poll and ICPSR permissions are negotiated individually by Ed Nelson.

10. Funding for AOF and Databases. The funding for the AOF program is now some 5+ years old and originally came from funds allocated to support the upkeep of the Central Cyber computer, now kaputso. The funds are being handled by CLRIT (Commission on Learning Resources and Instructional Technology). More money will probably be requested, but the emphasis may shift to larger, "system-changing" grants, rather than the smaller grants with an emphasis on faculty creativity prevalent in the past.

Database funding seems more secure, with the positive and enthusiastic recommendation of last year's subcommittee.

11. Field Poll Program -- need proposals for the Field Institute Faculty Fellowship, question credits, and student internship. Due in January. Encourage all to apply. Discussion of the need to retain membership in the Field organization due to the unique nature of the Field resource for the study of California politics and public opinion. Information on the Field Polls is available from Nan Chico's web site: http://isis.csuhayward.edu/alss/soc/nan/SSRIC--Field.htm Applications go to Ed Nelson at Fresno.

12. Social Science Data Base Archive (SSDBA) -- Jordan introduced himself, noting that he was a 1977 Ph.D. from CUNY in personality and social psychology, taught statistics at CCNY, was a computer consultant at CCNY, was at UCLA in Public Health in the 1970s and has been in Institutional Research at Cal State LA for over 10 years. His assistant is Vivian Ko. His work is done with SAS off a mainframe computer, and he has placed many of his reports on a web site for the Cal State and CSU community.

He recently was assigned responsibility for the SSDBA because it was felt that there would be a synergy between his office and its activities and the activities of the SSDBA. He is currently recruiting for two positions, one more technical and web oriented and the other more social science oriented, to work on the SSDBA. He is interested in building use of the SSDBA. The group reviewed typical reasons campuses gave for not joining the SSDBA. Faculty or students interested in ordering data should email ssdba@calstatela.edu. Nancy is still handling fiscal matters for the SSDBA. Jordan's email is ljordan@calstatela.edu.

J. Theodore Anagnoson, Scribe