By Stephen M. Gavazzi, Ph.D.

The Latest News, Views, and Announcements

What’s New at CHRR

The end of my third year as CHRR’s director is at hand! The time is certainly flying by fast even though it feels like I am just getting started. Speaking of starting things, CHRR just launched its third longitudinal study using the American Population Panel (APP) this past month. I am serving as Principal Investigator on this project, which seeks to examine consistency and change in public opinion about higher education over a four-year period. The first wave of APP data was collected in March-April of 2021 (just as the Biden administration was settling into office). Fast forward to March-April of 2025 (just as the second Trump administration is getting underway) and we are asking the same people the same questions about higher education a second time. Many thanks to Tammy Zimmerman for her expertise in programming and managing this project!

The fact that this project is anchored to the timing of the U.S. presidential election cycle is not by accident. Some of the most important variables that we are examining have to do with the degree to which a respondent’s political orientation is impacting their perceptions of colleges and universities. I am pleased to note that I have been joined in this project by Lee Strang and Jonathan Spiegler of the Chase Center for Civics, Culture and Society here at Ohio State. They have contributed some additional items for use in this second wave of data collection, mostly aimed at understanding the association between citizen perceptions of higher education and viewpoints about civic education. Additional collaborators include West Virginia University’s Sam Workman (Institute for Policy Research & Public Affairs) and WVU President Gordon Gee (my coauthor on the What’s Public About Public Higher Ed? book that reported on the first wave of data from the APP), along with the University of Georgia’s Alton Standifer. These latter research partners will be helping the team examine the specific responses from citizens in West Virginia and Georgia, respectively. Other states represented in this study include the seven most populous states of our nation: California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio.

CHRR's Leadership Team

The Leadership Team was pleased to welcome 42 out of the 47 employees who currently work at CHRR to our latest Town Hall Meeting! Having almost 90% of our total workforce show up for this event was gratifying, to say the least. Topics were developed through a brief survey of CHRR team members, which included a focus on issues related to remote work, the impact of the federal transition, and succession planning. While Leadership Team members thought that the ensuing discussion was informative, we also recognized that not every question was addressed in the most thorough manner possible. For the next Town Hall session, we will attempt to provide a more granular response to individual questions that are posed by CHRR employees.

Meanwhile, topics that were submitted related to HR, position titles, and Career Roadmap will be addressed in a separate ‘HR Virtual Town Hall’ with Catie Shuman-Damanti, our HR Consultant. The time and date for this meeting will be announced in the next few weeks. We will send out another anonymous survey for staff to submit their questions ahead of that town hall meeting. Stay tuned!

CHRR Team Member Celebrations

“Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.” -Virginia Burden

This month we are observing the work anniversaries of three valued employees:

• Amanda Roose, 28 years of service to CHRR.
• Jason Dale, 25 years of service to CHRR.
• Oxana Berezkina, 18 years of service to CHRR.

These three individuals collectively have provided CHRR with over 70 years of experience in project management, technology services, and database administration. Thank you for all that you do!

Things You Might Want to Know

Browning Seminar Now Available for Viewing Online

The recent seminar provided by Ohio State sociologist and longtime CHRR research partner Chris Browning is now available by visiting the watch seminar page. The ongoing project at the heart of Browning’s research is the Adolescent Health and Development in Context (AHDC) study, which focuses on a large sample of youth ages 11-17 in Central Ohio. CHRR is a long-time AHDC partner, helping Browning and his team execute the research and collect the data for more than 10 years. As noted in a previous newsletter, this seminar helped to kick off a year-long celebration of CHRR's 60^th anniversary. Many thanks to Clare Jellick for her continued leadership on these celebratory events!