Letter from the Director: 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.
These questions have catalyzed ISERP's fall panel series on the election, which will continue with forums after the next president takes office. More importantly, ISERP-affiliated scholars have produced major new works and contributed to debates about the proposed policies of the candidates and the wide-ranging dynamics of the election that raise important questions for social science and policy analysis. These include Sherry Glied's systematic analysis of the McCain and Obama proposals for health care reform, Fredrick Harris's ground-breaking study of how Obama's candidacy has affected racial identity and political behavior, and Andrew Gelman's methodologically and substantively engaging book on the economic, cultural, and partisan divide in American elections. While the election's theme of "change" caught on quickly, change is what ISERP at its inception has tried to capitalize on.
The institute has been reaching out to new faculty who we know are some of the most important intellectual agents of change at Columbia through ISERP's seed grant program,
while our fellows are continuing their work through external grants. Jonah Rockoff and Randall Reback, and Miguel Urquiola and Cristian Pop-Eleches, have major new projects examining education practices and educational policy. Dana Fisher's new National Science Foundation grant will explore social mobilization around global environmental issues.
Due to popular demand, in addition to our thriving noontime Political Economy Workshop, ISERP has a new early morning Political Economy Breakfast Workshop to promote student research. Other new workshops and seminars include a new Communications seminar, one on Narrative Genetics, and a Workshop on Meaning: Language and Sociocultural Processes.
This is some of what has been happening in my first three months as ISERP's Acting Director, as the School of Arts and Sciences prepares to search for the next Director. ISERP continues to be interested in new ideas and your thoughts - particularly now as changes abound on the national scene in this most exciting of times.
Robert Shapiro, Director
Institute of Social and Economic
Research and Policy
