Fall 2009
Fall 2009
Letters from the Director
Each quarter, ISERP's current Director shares his insight into ISERP's work and accomplishments, as well as the challenges facing the organization and the state of social science research more generally. A complete chronology of these letters is available below.
Spring 2009
Spring 2009
Some reflections from ISERP’s Acting Director, Robert Shapiro, upon the commencement of this year’s Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences M.A. graduates and the first graduating class of Columbia’s Oral History M.A. program. Shapiro also discussed are the energetic efforts of ISERP faculty fellows and staff to acquire new grant funding despite the economic downturn, as well as the prominence of the subject of migration in recent ISERP-affiliated scholarship.
A New Semester
Winter 2008-2009
A lot has happened since our last newsletter. Barack Obama has become the 44th President of the United States and the nation’s first African American president. His administration is now wrestling with the nation’s greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. As we move forward we look to the past for insight or further questions to ask.
Letter from the Director: Fall 2008
Fall 2008
Since the last issue of the newsletter we have come from the Summer Olympics to the new academic year, the baseball world series, and most importantly, the 2008 presidential election. This is the most exciting and important American election since 1932, as the Great Depression was deepening and a world war was on the way. The current financial crisis and deepening recession are being compared to the Depression, and our armed forces are at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no definitive end in sight. Will the 2008 election produce a political realignment on the scale of Franklin Roosevelt's defeat of President Herbert Hoover? And how would a John McCain administration differ from one led by Barack Obama at this
critical juncture in American history? After the longest campaign the nation has ever seen, we are left with important questions about the politics of race, gender, and age and how they will contribute to the outcome on November 4th.
Letter from the Director: Bearman Passes Off the Baton
Summer 2008
On June 30th, Robert Y. Shapiro replaced Peter Bearman as ISERP's director. Shapiro, the acting director of the School of Arts and Sciences and a political scientist long involved with Columbia's social research program, is excited to begin his directorship during this presidential election year. Election politics provides many opportunities for political science research, and under Shapiro's leadership ISERP will undertake many new projects on, among other things, voting dynamics, political campaigns, and the role of journalists and the mass media in the election. Beyond the fall, Shapiro looks forward to new interdisciplinary workshops on ethnography, mass communication, and economic-sociology.
Director's Letter: Reflecting on ISERP
Spring 2008
This is the last newsletter that I will write as Director of ISERP. I have always believed that one of the most difficult things to establish is a culture that values collective goods. ISERP was conceived to be a collective goods organization, and since our inception eight years ago, we have tried to act consistently with that vision.
Letter from the Director: Super Tuesday
Winter 2007-2008
Super Tuesday - Twenty-four states are holding caucuses and primary elections today. The early returns from Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and others have been in, and it is evident that there is still a lot of confusion and indecision about the crop of presidential candidates.
Letter from the Director: Transitions and New Initiatives
Fall 2007
This has been a busy fall for ISERP. We have long felt that our mission is to contribute to building both disciplinary and interdisciplinary strength in the social sciences at Columbia. At the same time, we have also long felt that we need to support work that is more of a sure bet and support work that is highly risky.
Letter from the Director: Summer Break
Summer 2007
While ISERP has been self-sufficient for a few years, we are now able to invest more heavily in a wide range of activities beyond our immediate doors. In this regard, we will be making major contributions over the next few years to build a population center at Columbia, to scholars associated with the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWAG) as they establish a center on race, class, and gender in global context, and to developing a long-term collaboration with scholars at the Law School and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) for research on institutions, institutional reform, and inequality.
Letter from the Director: Spring Break
Spring 2007
Here at ISERP, it is Spring Break. New programs and initiatives announced in the winter are coming into clearer focus. The Mellon-funded interdisciplinary training program in social science for advanced graduate students is now soliciting applications for the first cohort, our joint MA program with the Oral History Office has been undergoing review in the Graduate School for Arts and Sciences, and we are starting the complex process of selecting undergraduate and high school student interns for the summer internship programs we run.
Letter from the Director: Holiday Season
Winter 2006-2007
It is the holiday season, even if unseasonably warm. ISERP highlights from the fall include our symposium on the 2006 election, the arrival of Amira Ibrahim from Goldman Sachs to manage the financial activities of ISERP, and news of substantial Mellon Foundation support for an enhanced and expanded Graduate Fellows program. We continue to seek out opportunities to support the building of new collaborative research ventures and are also working hard to enhance and expand our curricular impacts.
Letter from the Director: Columbus Day
Fall 2006
We are coming into the election season. Even if only for the mid-term, the outcome matters. We hope to continue thinking about how we can effectively link the best scientific understandings to current debates in politics as we move towards the 2008 elections. Nothing is more important at this time than showing that social science evidence counts for something, for whatever our political views, the beautiful thing about the academy is that we have commitment to serious scholarship, as versus the junk science of ideologues and fanatics who use the rhetoric of science to conjure up "facts."
Letter from the Director: Memorial Day 2006
Summer 2006
And so approaches our favorite time of year - the time when we all imagine that we can get some work done. For many academics, summer means leaving the city and a chance to enjoy the reassuring sound of wood chippers and lawn mowers. This is not the case for the vast majority of our eight million or so immediate neighbors (and ISERP staff). Nor is it the case for much of our research-which remains centered on New York. This issue of the newsletter features a small sample of some of the urban-specifically NYC-focused research and activities at ISERP.
Letter from the Director: U.S. Census Day
Spring 2006
Most social scientists have an irrational fear of genetic expression because they believe that should there be such expression on social outcomes, our disciplines would come under challenge. This is a naive belief and arises from serious overvaluation of genetics. It is self-evident that observation of genetic expression is proof that social structure matters.
Letter from the Director: Thanksgiving Break
Winter 2005-2006
In addition to thermal baths, museums, architecture, and paprika, Budapest is home to the Central European University, which Peter Bearman visited over break. He spoke with faculty about writing successful research grants and provides some insights for Columbia faculty seeking funding.
Letter from the Director: Labor Day
Fall 2005
Over the past two decades, fueled by changes in social science research strategies and increased computational power, social scientists have begun to recognize that threats to confidentiality through deductive disclosure of respondent identity are real.
Letter from the Director: Memorial Day
Summer 2005
This is a period of transition for all universities, as we collectively say goodbye to the students whose presence provides one of the principal rationales for what we do.
Letter from the Director: Valentine's Day
Spring 2005
Is optimism important? Tom DiPrete (ISERP Faculty Fellow, Sociology) suggests that optimism is an American characteristic. He notes in his paper "Is This a Great Country, or What?" that public opinion data suggests that a strikingly large proportion of Americans believe they have a good chance of becoming rich in their lifetime.
Letter from the Director: Thanksgiving
Winter 2004-2005
There is often something reassuring about continuity. But many of us had wished for some discontinuity in the government. So what went wrong for Kerry?
Letter from the Director: Newsletter Launch
Fall 2004
Welcome to the first of what we hope will be many newsletters featuring research and events at ISERP. As our fifth year comes to a close, I am struck by how much we have grown.
