2009-2010 Annual Report | SSRIC - Social Science Research and Instructional Council

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The California State University Social Sciences Research
and Instructional Council (SSRIC)

The SSRIC is
composed of representatives from each of the CSU campuses. Its overall
objective is to support faculty, staff and student research and teaching in
all social science disciplines. It does this by:

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Developing
instructional materials and making them available on the Council’s website ( href="http://www.SSRIC.org">www.ssric.org)

COUNCIL ACTIVITIES style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:135%;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
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Databases

The databases
the CSU subscribes to include the:

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Inter-University
Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of
Michigan. Founded in 1962, the Consortium houses data from style='mso-spacerun:yes'> over 600 studies representing over
60,000 datasets. These data are made available to member institutions such as
the CSU

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Roper
Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut. Founded
in 1947, the Center houses the world’s largest archive of survey data.

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The
Field Institute in San Francisco is an independent, nonpartisan public
opinion news serviced that has operated since 1947. It has issued over 2300
different reports based on its polls of California residents.

In 2009-10,
the SSRIC generated over $180,000 by soliciting subscriptions from each CSU
campus (except the Maritime Academy) and garnering additional support from
the Chancellor’s office to maintain access to these databases. The
consolidation of membership in these organizations, facilitated by the
SSRIC, represents a considerable savings (over $121,000 or 40%) to
faculty and campuses that would otherwise have to subscribe individually.
Students, faculty and staff are able to download data, codebooks and other
material directly to their computers as a result of this access. At the
same time, SSRIC representatives have actively contributed to ICPSR’s
instructional resources; most recently with a module entitled “Investigating
Community and Social Capital.”

The Council
has had a license for Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) class=GramE>, a statistical analysis package developed at UC Berkeley,
and has converted six datasets to SDA format. SDA enables faculty and
students to analyze data without requiring client-side software (such as
SPSS). Due to budget cuts this year, SSRIC decided to suspend its license
last year, but datasets already converted are available at
http://www.ssric.org/sda.

Instructional Materials and Workshops style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:135%;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
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SSRIC also
makes available instructional material via its website. These include two
online textbooks, instructional modules and exercises, and instructional
handouts. This year, SSRIC representatives have been working with Andrew
Roderick (SFSU Academic Computing) to continue to update some of these
modules.

The Council
also offers free workshops at any campus where faculty have expressed an
interest in learning how to access and analyze quantitative data from ICPSR,
Roper and Field, and using SDA. Workshops are also provided on the use
of SPSS for data analysis. In 2009-10, seven workshops were conducted
on five campuses (see table).

Workshops Academic Year 2009-10

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Campus

Date

Attendees

Type of Workshop

Fullerton

August

SDA

Bakersfield

Oct.

Data in the classroom

Fresno

Oct.

Social Sci Databases

San Bernardino

March

Not recorded

Social Sci Databases

Los Angeles

April

Not recorded

Data in the classroom

Fresno

12 May

SPSS I

Fresno

15 May

SPSS II

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Faculty
Research

For the
summer of 2010, the ICPSR made available support for one CSU faculty and/or
students to attend its summer session. Faculty and students are
invited to compete for this support by submitting their resume and a
statement about what training they intend to pursue and how it will support their
research and/or teaching. This year one faculty member was awarded a
fee/tuition waiver.

Each year the
Field Poll provides SSRIC with the opportunity to award CSU faculty with a
fellowship that includes credit for a limited number of items to be included
on an upcoming Field poll. Faculty submit RFPs
and a committee chooses from among them. This year, Kimberly class=SpellE>Nalder of CSU Sacramento was awarded the fellowship for
her study “Political Knowledge.”

Forums
for Sharing Information

The Council
met three times this past year; in October at CSU East Bay, in February at
Los Angeles, and in May at Cal Poly Pomona. In response to a request
from the Chancellor’s office for the Council to look for ways to cut its
budget, there was no travel reimbursement for council members this year. Some
members participated in the meetings virtually, while others from nearby
campuses attended in person. Still,
attendance at the meetings was good as many representatives were willing to
look elsewhere for funding or attend at their own expense.

Student
Research Conference

The
SSRIC hosted its 34^th annual student research conference at Cal
Poly Pomona on April 30, 2010. Thirty-seven students from seven
campuses participated from a variety of social science disciplines. The
following students were presented with awards:

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Daniel Krystosek
- Sociology, Sacramento - Gloria Rummels Award for
Best Quantitative Paper, "The Church Influences the State: Religion and
Marijuana Laws."

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Mark Ocegueda
- History, San Bernardino - Charles McCall Award for Best Undergraduate
Paper, "Lopez v. class=SpellE>Seccombe: The City of Sn
Bernardino's Mexican American Defense Committee and Its Role in Regional and
National Desegregation."

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Andria Black - Political Science, Long
Beach - Betty Nesvold Award for Best Graduate
Paper, "Composing a Nation: A Multidisciplinary Approach to French
Nationalism."

Structure and Governance style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:135%;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
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Officers and Chairs

The officers
and committee chairs for the 2009-10 year consisted of the following:

Chair: Ellen
Berg (Sacramento)

Executive
Committee: John Korey (Pomona), Ed Nelson (Fresno), Lori Weber
(Chico), Kathy Naff (San Francisco)

Field
committee: Ed Nelson (Fresno)

ICPSR summer
stipend: Pat Jennings (East Bay)

TRD: Gene
Turner (Northridge)

Student
conference: John Korey (Pomona)

Chair-elect:
Greg Bohr (SLO)

Business
Meetings and Student Conference

Fall: October
2009, East Bay

Winter:
February, 2009, LA

Spring
Meeting and Student Conference: May 2010, Pomona

The SSRIC has
also been actively involved in governance at ICPSR. Last year an SSRIC
representative was elected to a four-year term on the ICPSR’s 11-member
governing council. SSRIC representatives have also been active members
of ICPSR’s undergraduate research paper competition review committee, SSRIC
representative Ed Nelson (Fresno) will be participating on a newly
established ICPSR committee. Two SSRIC representatives, Ed Nelson and
Ricky Blumenthal (Dominguez Hills) are
actively involved with in a recently established Consortium of Applied Social Science Research Centers (CASSRC).