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John H. Thompson Named NORC President
On November 14, NORC's Board of Trustees named John H. Thompson as the organization's new President. Thompson had served as Interim President since February 2008 and as Executive Vice President for Survey Operations since he joined NORC in 2002.
Thompson came to NORC after a distinguished 27-year career at the U.S. Census Bureau, where he had responsibility for all aspects of the 2000 Decennial Census.
Thompson is an acknowledged expert in the field of social science research, with a special emphasis on large and complex surveys. His recent work includes serving as project director for the National Immunization Survey (NIS), which NORC conducts on behalf of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Thompson attended Virginia Tech University where he earned a Bachelors degree and a Masters of Science degree.
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| PEOPLE |
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Avi Singh is Newest Senior Fellow
Dr. Avi Singh joined NORC in January as a senior fellow in the Center for Excellence in Survey Research. He worked previously as a senior research advisor at Statistics Canada and Research Triangle Institute (RTI).
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Dear NORC Update Reader,
With this issue, NORC Update will begin using a more streamlined and modern format, along with a much more efficient email list management system. I hope you like the changes. Your comments and questions are welcome.
Cathleen Savage
Editor
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Center for Advancing Research and Communication in STEM Established
NORC announced the establishment of the Center for Advancing Research and Communication in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (ARC), a new research center to assist the National Science Foundation in advancing, assessing, and coordinating the diffusion of knowledge generated by basic and applied research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
NORC Senior Fellow Barbara L. Schneider (Michigan State University) is the Principal Investigator and will direct the center, which is headquartered at the University of Chicago's Hyde Park campus. ARC is the newest of NORC's Academic Research Centers. The Co-principal Investigators are Sarah-Kathryn McDonald (NORC), Larry Hedges (Northwestern University), and Colm O'Muircheartaigh (University of Chicago). NORC Research Scientist Kevin Brown will direct community-building and outreach efforts.
ARC will strengthen, stimulate, and support the utilization of work produced by the NSF's Research and Evaluation on Education in Science and Engineering (REESE) program, which was created to address problems of integrating evidence across disciplines; avoid issues of research fragmentation; and synthesize knowledge in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
ARC will provide technical assistance; synthesize and disseminate findings; conduct special evaluative studies; build communities; and undertake research in support of the REESE program. In carrying out its activities, ARC will work closely with its Board of Science Advisors.
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Meit Testifies on Rural Health and Access to Care
NORC Senior Research Scientist Michael Meit gave testimony on January 27 before the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. A video and a transcript of his testimony are available here. |
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 NORC Partners with Harris School on Cultural Policy Center
NORC's partnership with the Harris School of Public Policy Studies to operate the Cultural Policy Center (CPC) began in January. The center -- a nationally recognized program dedicated to informing policies that affect the arts, humanities, and cultural heritage -- is based in NORC's Academic Research Centers. The Cultural Policy Center, founded in 1999, has built a portfolio of projects that examine cultural policy at local, state, national, and international levels. Its latest research projects include several books: one on how to prevent the looting of antiquities during wartime, and another which examines how American nonprofit arts organizations are diversifying their audiences, building new relationships with their local communities, and creating new consumer markets for arts experiences and products. Other Recent work includes two Chicago-based studies - a project that mapped participation in the city's cultural institutions and an analysis of the Chicago music scene and its role in the city's economy. The first project of the new affiliation between the Cultural Policy Center and NORC is a large study of the nation's cultural infrastructure. It is being undertaken as a direct response to the ongoing boom in building projects taken on by American museums and performing arts groups. "We have been hearing that construction projects are creating enormous debt, donor fatigue, and even bankruptcy for arts organizations who thought that these projects would carry them to the next level and make them stronger," said Carroll Joynes, the Center's executive director. The study will gather data on major building projects in the cultural sector, conduct a survey of cultural infrastructure projects, study the decision-making processes leading up to them, and perform an economic analysis of their impact on the cultural institutions within those cities. Initial funding for the study has been provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The Smart Family Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, and the Irving Harris Foundation provided early support for project development. Visit the Cultural Policy Center. |
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Senior Fellow Tom W. Smith to Head Public Opinion Association
NORC Senior Fellow Tom W. Smith has been named VP/President-Elect of the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR).
Smith is widely known for his innovation and service to the field of survey research. In addition to serving as the director of the National Science Foundation sponsored General Social Survey (GSS), he is one of the founders of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), which allows cross-national comparison of survey data.
Smith has written about and is frequently consulted on such diverse topics as survey methodology, inter-group relations, happiness, religion, guns, job satisfaction, national pride, US spending priorities, and American sexual behavior.
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NORC conducts scientific surveys for its clients on a wide variety of topics, some of which involve sensitive and controversial issues. NORC does not advocate specific positions or points of view on political issues but, rather, seeks to be a source of reliable and accurate information for government policy makers, the public, the media, and others interested in important social issues.
© 2009 NORC and the National Opinion Research Center. All rights reserved. www.norc.org and www.norc.uchicago.edu | |
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