INSTITUTE NEWS

ISSI's UC DATA Launches New NSF-funded project in Nuclear Forensics

Success in nuclear forensics search is a critical component to fighting terrorist activity and preventing disastrous individual terrorist nuclear attacks. The Nuclear Forensic Search Project takes a computer science algorithmic approach (as a special directed graph matching problem) to address the nuclear forensics search problem, essentially recasting nuclear forensics discovery as a digital library search problem. A simultaneous aim, is to encourage other computer scientists to work on nuclear forensics search. ISSI Scholar-in-Residence Fred Gey will serve as the Principal Investigator of this three year $1 million project, which is funded by the NSF/Domestic Nuclear Detection Office Academic Research Initiative. Ray Larson, a Professor in UC Berkeley's School of Information, is the project's co-PI.

ISSI's Joseph A. Myers Center for Research on Native American Issues Holds First-of-Its-Kind Museum Studies Institute

On January 10-13, 2012, ISSI's Joseph A. Myers Center for Research on Native American Issues, in collaboration with the Phoebe A. Heart Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley and the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center, hosted a Native American Museum Studies Institute. The Institute, which was open to the public, provided participants with training and instruction in collections management, collections care and conservation, curation and exhibit design, educational programming, museum management and fundraising, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).  The goal of the Institute was to develop the capacity of tribal community members to: conserve and revitalize tribal cultural heritage, foster tribal representations and partnerships, and educate tribal and non-tribal communities through museum development and exhibits.

"The need to conserve and revitalize tribal cultural heritage, and give tribes a stronger voice in representing that heritage, was the beating heart of the institute. In addition to workshops on topics like collections management and cataloging — including a day at the Hearst’s basket and textile storage facility in Emeryville — participants were schooled in such issues as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, better known as NAGPRA, the 1990 law that requires institutions receiving federal funding to return human remains and other cultural objects to tribes." Read more - from the UC Berkeley News Center's story about the Institute - here.

ISSI In the News

A story about the origins and activities of ISSI, "From cracks in the campus budget, a new research community blooms," is featured in the August 23 edition of The Berkeleyan.  

"Born of financial crisis, UC Berkeley's Institute for the Study of Societal Issues has cultivated a more collaborative, community-based approach to social-science research. In the process, a rickety old campus building has been transformed into a place where scholars can do more with less."

Read the full article here.

Two Recent publications by ISSI Scholars

Abramson, Corey M. (2012), From "Either-Or" to "When and How": A Context-Dependent Model of Culture in Action. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. Available online 17 January 2012.

Abramson , Corey M. and Martín Sánchez-Jankowski (2011), Racial differences in physician usage among the elderly poor in the United States, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. Available online 1 December 2011. 

ISSI's Center for Latino Policy Research (CLPR) Awarded Innovation and Research Grants

ISSI's Center for Latino Policy Research has been awarded a $25,000 UC Berkeley Innovation Grant for Equity, Inclusion and Diversity.  The award will be used to fund the "Student Engagement and Retention through Research" program. Through collaboration among established academic programs at Berkeley -- the Center for Latino Policy Research, the Marco Antonio Firebaugh Scholars, Student Life Advising/EOP Counselors (SLAS/EOP) -- and local community organizations, including the Greenlining Institute, the Applied Research Center, and Urban Habitat, this program will enhance undergraduate student retention by engaging students in academic research projects that are grounded in their experiences working with local community organizations. Participation in this program will not only provide students with traditional academic supports, such as guidance on research and writing, but also will make explicit the links between intellectual work and community practice. Community engaged research of this type is especially appropriate for retaining and supporting Cal's most marginal students, such as AB540 students. Through this unique community-engaged academic support program, these students' retention and academic success will be improved.

CLPR is also partnernering with the Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) on a $500,000 planning grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Education's Promise Neighborhood program. The grant will be used to improve opportunities for children and families in San Francisco's Mission District. CLPR will provide support for the needs assessment and data collection, evaluation, and dissemination portions of the project. Read more about this project here. 

CCSRWM Collection of Conservative Political Ephemera, 1980-2004, now available at the Bancroft Library

In June of 2010, People for the American Way donated its vast and unique collection of materials on the American Right to ISSI's Center for the Comparative Study of Right-Wing Movements.  This archive has been processed and is now permanently housed at UC Berkeley's prestigious Bancroft Library, one of the largest and most heavily used libraries of manuscripts, rare books, and unique materials in the United States, which is open to students and scholars from around the world.

Comprised of approximately 1,220 organizations, 300 individual files, and 80 rare right-wing magazines and newspapers, the Collection charts the flourishing movements of American conservatism from the 1980s to the early twenty-first century. The materials in the collection, which include organizations' and individuals' pamphlets, direct mailings, publications, speeches, conference programs, internal financial records, membership lists, fundraising strategies, voter guides, manuals, and biographies document the ideological orientations, policy positions, talking points, and organizational structures and strategies of hundreds of right-wing organizations, individuals, and publications. A large portion of the collection focuses specifically on documents associated with the "religious right." Of particular interest (due to scope) are materials pertaining to the American Family Association, Christian Coalition, Coalition for Better TV, Concerned Women for America, Family Research Council, the Moral Majority, and the Pat Robertson Papers. Additionally, there are comprehensive collections of the following publications: Charisma & Christian Life, Chalcedon Report, Chronicle, Focus on the Family and New American.  

CCSRWM acquired the collection so that scholars from a range of fields might use it to illuminate our historical and social understanding of the American Right. To read more about the materials in the Collection and how to access them, click here.