By Stephen M. Gavazzi, Ph.D.

The Latest News, Views, and Announcements

MLK Day Celebrations

This newsletter is being released one day later than usual because of our university’s celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. In addition to any of the festivities you may have attended yesterday in honor of Dr. King, I wish to draw your attention to the "Civil Rights in Sports" events that will take place on Tuesday, January 24th from 11:30am to 5:00pm at various sites on campus. Cohosted by the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Education and Human Ecology along with the School of Communication and the Wexner Center for the Arts, the day’s activities will include a luncheon and keynote address by former Ohio State and NFL safety Malcolm Jenkins. More information on this event can be found on the EHE website.

What’s New at CHRR

This month CHRR welcomes Brian Snyder, who will be serving in a consulting capacity as our Strategic Partnerships Manager. Brian brings to the team a diverse academic background, including master’s degrees in Theological Studies from Harvard University and Business Management from UMass Amherst, and much practical experience in the fields of mental health treatment and sustainable agriculture. Over a career spanning four decades, he has served as a nonprofit chief executive for 30 years, most recently as executive director of the Initiative for Food and AgriCultural Transformation (InFACT), one of Ohio State’s Discovery Themes.

Brian’s initial focus at CHRR will be the ongoing management of our Land-Grant Partnerships project in which we aim to bring truth, reconciliation and recompense for Native American tribes due to the injustices associated with the founding of the land-grant system in the 19th Century, primarily through building strong partnerships between 1862 and 1994 (tribal) institutions. This effort grew out of the Stepping Out & Stepping Up project, which was among the first awardees from the Seed Fund for Racial Justice offered by Ohio State in 2020, and which InFACT was instrumental in helping to initiate. Brian’s stated intention is to weave this work into the ongoing mission of CHRR through what he calls the “People + Partnerships + Purpose” approach, whereby our innate prowess in collecting people-centered data can be empowered through strategic partnerships across sectors and geography to achieve specific purposes that are important to our clients. Hence, this focus is a potentially important value-add for the future work of CHRR in other areas as well. If you wish to drop Brian a welcome note: write2farm@gmail.com.

CHRR's Leadership Team

In just two days, our Strategic Doing/Strategic Planning efforts will officially launch in a four-hour session to be conducted by Jeff Agnoli, Senior Liaison in The Ohio State University Office of Corporate Partnerships. Many thanks to Canada Keck, Frank Marino, Josh Hawley and Lucy Herrera for agreeing to join regular CHRR Leadership Team members Amanda Roose, Brittany Poast, Jen Hoffman, Lisa Neilson, Nick Ramser, Rosella Gardecki and myself for this kickoff activity. I anticipate that there will be much to report in the very near future!

These strategic planning efforts coincide with the next round of Quarterly Check In (QCI) meetings that currently are underway. Readers of previous newsletters will remember that these quarterly check-ins are designed to be a mechanism for supervisors and their direct reports to touch base in more regular fashion on issues surrounding professional growth and innovation. The fact that these QCIs are occurring amidst the Strategic Doing/Strategic Planning process provides everyone with a great opportunity to explore various connections between individual, program area, and center-wide goals and objectives for growth and development over the next five years.

We are wrapping up an internal CHRR space survey that was designed to help us understand the office needs of our team members. Over the past couple of months, representatives of units, departments, and colleges across campus have toured our facilities with the intention of subletting available offices. To figure out our space availability, the following guidelines were employed to determine the definitions of 'Fully Onsite', 'Hybrid', and 'Fully Remote' employees:

• Fully Onsite: working in the office 4 or 5 days a week on average.
• Hybrid: working in the office between 1 and 3 days a week on average.
• Fully Remote: working at home 5 days per week. May have an occasional need to come to CHRR, but the need is well less than 1 day per week.

We plan to continue offering office space to all fully onsite and hybrid workers. For any employee that is fully remote, we will begin offering general "drop in" workspace in 2 rooms (227 and 229) which will be arranged as multi-desk offices. In addition, the semi-private Room 231 on the North Side will be reserved for NLS fully remote workers, while the semi-private Room 237 on the South Side will be reserved for OLDA fully remote workers. Further, any "overflow" situations will be addressed through use of the carrels in the middle of the CHRR suite.

Although we have not yet heard from everyone, we estimate that we have approximately 20 offices open at this time. Plans include opening up a maximum of 10-12 offices as an experimental run before committing all space.

Things You Might Want to Know

Ohio Gambling Study Yields Over 14,500 Responses

The 2022 version of the Ohio Gambling Survey (2022 OGS) funded by the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (OhioMHAS) and the Ohio for Responsible Gambling partners (the Ohio Casino Control Commission, Ohio Lottery Commission and Ohio State Racing Commission) recently closed with over 14,500 completed cases. Led by Principal Investigator Randy Olsen and adroitly managed by Canada Keck, this survey collected details on a variety of gambling and ersatz-gambling behaviors (such as day trading and investing in crypto currencies) as well as indicators of problem gambling and the connection between gambling and substance use. For those respondents who do gamble, the survey collected details on how people gamble (as well as how much and where they gamble). The cases come from each of the 50 ADAMH boards in Ohio, supporting inferences about how gambling behaviors may differ across various regions of Ohio.

NLS and OLDA Databases Presented at IPR Seminar

Access to our large longitudinal databases was the topic of today’s Institute for Population Research (IPR) seminar. Lisa Neilson was on hand to present information about the Ohio Longitudinal Data Archive (OLDA), while Steve McClaskie presented on the National Longitudinal Studies of Youth (NLSY79 and NLSY97). There was great interest shown by faculty and students who were on hand for this seminar, creating the distinct impression that new studies using both databases are in the offing!