SSRIC MEETING MINUTESWinter 2016 meeting

Attendance

Stafford Cox (Chair, Long Beach), Rhonda Dugan (Bakersfield), Gilbert Garcia (Los Angeles), Marcela Garcia-Castañon (San Francisco), Brian Gillespie (Sonoma), Matt Holian (San Jose), Nancy Hudspeth (Stanislaus), Aya Ida (Sacramento), John Korey (Pomona), Tim Kubal (Fresno), Regan Maas (Northridge), John Menary (Dominguez Hills), Ed Nelson (Fresno), Ginger Shoulders (San Diego), Billy Wagner (Channel Islands), Lori Weber (Chico)

Organizational matters

  • Agenda approved 13 to 0.
  • Approved minutes 11 to 2.
  • Representatives should update the long list.
  • Representatives may request a letter acknowledging their service to the SS RIC.

Chair nomination for 2016 2017 – Regan Maas elected.

Executive Order 1103

  • Paul’s support by deadline, May 6th extension authorization, April 1 – revisions due for full authorization. Turnover in administration is a concern.
  • The organization and services chart provides organizational leadership, particularly for the executive committee.
  • We need to work on the strategic plan.
  • Value propositions are important. Strategic agenda – tiers, e.g., tier 130%, tier 215%, tier 315%.
  • Draft vision statement. Issues to consider are things like, student intern, how to dissolve a campus (they keep the right to vote, the only penalty is to lose the subscription), the executive committee suggests a chair elect at the spring meeting, who would become the chair the following year. Motion on using a chair elect system was seconded by John, and the vote was 14 to 0, in favor of the motion.
  • The bylaws committee consists of Jill Yamashita, John Korey, Rhonda Dugan, and Stafford (chair).

Social Science Student Symposium (S4)

  • The S4 symposium is May 5.Ginger gave a report on the development of the planning for the May 5 symposium.The morning and the lunch and main sessions will be in the new student union.The majority of sessions will be in the library.There is about a five-minute walk between buildings.
  • In the morning there are five rooms, and in the afternoon, there are six rooms.
  • Catering is locked down.
  • SSRIC may have to pay for both meals. Must pay for one room in student union. $2300 total.
  • Friday business meeting will be in arts and letters building.
  • In regards to parking no permits will be honored from other campuses.
  • Ginger will buy permits for two lots. Permits are four dollars.
  • The trolley stops at the union, old town and mission.
  • The Motel 6 close to campus is loud and perhaps unsafe.
  • The Mission Valley Marriott is a good choice for faculty.
  • Most people will want to arrive Wednesday night and leave Friday afternoon.
  • Gilbert is the chair of the student awards committee.Guidelines for existing papers were discussed and the committee was finalized. The committee members include Dugan, Rose, Bates, Kubal, Gillespie, and Menary.
  • The Council next discussed Gene Geisler funding.There are three$5,000 awards plus travel money for all submissions. We decided to hold fast for now and not change the amount – $75 for all students and $75 for travel. If last-minute changes are needed, they will be decided by the executive committee.
  • There was a motion to make Wednesday, April 6, 2016 the new registration deadline. There was no discussion. The vote passed: 13 yay, zero nay and one abstain.
  • The next topic of discussion was the symposium speaker. The focus is local survey research. Ginger asked about the honorarium, and others responded that we had provided $300 in the past. Please send suggestions to Ginger. Stafford suggested a professor from campus.

Website redesign

Ed shared a letter from Andrew saying they did not have the bandwidth or time to redesign our website. Kubal will follow up with Andrew via email and see about our options.

Quantitative Social Science Major

  • The next topic that was discussed is the social science interdisciplinary task force.Billy Wagner is the chair of this committee.
  • The committee discussed how to implement the process of a social science major, and how to integrate strong methodology. The committee discussed which department might serve as the home major. Would it be a social science department? A math department? Regan chimed in and said that there is an online interdisciplinary course completion program at California State University Northridge, which is housed in the Dean’s office.
  • The committee also discussed the nature and number of core base classes that would be in this sequence. Would it be for classes? Would they all be on line?
  • Would there be any administrative hurdles to advertising online classes that could be auto counted for degree completion?
  • The Committee also discussed what needed to happen next, such as specifying a sample major and a list of courses.
  • An example of course class listings was presented.
  • Lori reported that Chico has an undergraduate interdisciplinary program for online research methods in sociology. This might provide a test case for our project.
  • Stafford suggested he will share this discussion with Gene. We want to make sure that we are moving forward with his idea. Also Stafford suggested that, if there are existing programs, we should ask ourselves what we can add to the existing programs.

Field Fellowship

  • Next, Ed discussed the review process (Field).
  • Ed will run this committee. The committee makes a decision, and then sends forward a pool of four reviewers (you can’t review from your own campus). Then, Ed will report at the Springmeeting which proposal won.

ICPSR

Campuses are no longer getting paper advertisements for the ICPSR. Greg will forward these to members.

Budget

  • SSRIC budget – similar to the 2015 2016 budget. Website cost is undetermined. Travel – budget increases 5% from the increase in subscriptions. $7000 was set aside for website redesign.
  • Could we get extra funds? If all the representatives spend two nights at the Marriott. We will have between 6000 and $8000 left. We can use this to pay for the website work. If the website doesn’t need $7000, we could put funds into travel.
  • There was a motion that was seconded and we voted. Left over money will be moved to travel. The vote was 8 to 0, with one abstention.
  • Action: moved to approve the proposed budget for 2016 to 2017. Seconded by John and Greg. Discussion: maximum amount is $235,986. Send subscription letters late April and early May. Vote 9 to 0, with one abstention.

Usage Statistics

Usage statistics for 2014 to 2015 show similar usage to last year. Northridge and Pomona are big users. Regan says it’s from faculty that did the summer program. The ICPSR receives a good amount of usage. Roper and iPOLL receive less usage, and the lowest amount of usage is for the Field poll. Ed believes that much of the usage is driven through SSRIC workshops and demonstrations using the databases. These demonstrations provide a base use of downloads, where students and instructors use it during the demonstration and hopefully later. The challenge is to raise database utilization, and one tool is to complete demonstrations on the use of the databases. If you would like to schedule a workshop to have Ed come and demonstrate let him know.Ed has also posted exercises on the website for 2014 General Social Survey, as well as other instructional exercises.

Other Business

Send Stafford costs for the San Diego meeting.