Center for Social Research

CSR report to CRC on the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence program

On November 15, CSR presented its 2007 survey report to the board of the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence project in the Christian Reformed Church. The report is posted here.

Calvin team maps health care for low-income patients

In summer 2007, Dr. Fred De Jong and social work student Lauren Vander Plas (at left) completed a significant report for the Grand Rapids Healthy Communities Access Program (GRHCAP), a federal grant awarded to Cherry Street Health Services as the head of a regional consortium of health care organizations.

The report’s maps illustrate the depth and breadth of low-income coverage provided by Grand Rapids’ growing clinic network. For example, the green areas in the map detail below show that the low-income patient population living in central Grand Rapids is a substantial proportion of the estimated low-income population in those same areas.

CSR Fellows Mulder and Smith to present at Yale conference

Constructing a study of faith and cities

CSR’s faculty Fellows for 2006-2008 are Drs. Mark Mulder of Sociology (on left above) and James K. A. Smith of Philosophy (on right above). The duo will present a report on their work in progress, “Subdivided by Faith,” at the conference on Ecclesiology and Ethnology at Yale University’s Center for Faith and Culture on Saturday morning, September 28.

In Spring 2007, students from Dr. Smith’s Philosophy of the Social Sciences class (PHIL 201/SOC 395) and Dr. Mulder’s Urban Sociology class (SOC 302) interviewed local residents from a wide range of religious traditions and geographies to gain insight into religious believers’ attitudes toward urban areas. The presentation at Yale will draw on the scholars’ early readings of these interview transcripts.

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Young Alumni Survey - 2007

Reporting on the responses of Alumni at one year, three years, and ten years after Calvin is almost completed. Each academic department will receive their own report based on Alumni and non-grad equivalent responses. In its second year, the number of respondents has increased for this entirely online survey project through the addition of the ten-year-out wave, while the response rate has remained static. Finished reports are due out in September.

Leading Scholar of Religion and Sociology Visits Calvin!

February 26, 2007. 3:30 p.m. Meeter Center Lecture Hall Scholar Nancy Ammerman, Professor of Sociology of Religion at Boston University will be giving a lecture entitled “Doing Good in the World: How Congregations Make a Difference.” Dr. Ammerman’s studies over the last decade have been devoted to American religious congregations. She is the author of nearly a dozen books and is active in educating the public on matters of American religious life. Her books have focused on patterns in faith communities, conservative religious movements and the role of religion in American life. In 2005 she discussed the religion and American family in an interview with Kim Lawton. (read it here) In addition to her many scholarly endeavors, Dr. Ammerman was involved as an advisor in the U.S. government’s investigation of the confrontation with the Branch Davidians at Waco. She served on a panel of experts convened by the U.S Departments of Justice and Treasury and testified before the Judiciary Committee. She also spent time in Israel, lecturing under U.S. State Department sponsorship. To find out more about Dr. Ammerman and see a list of her publications, visit her website. Also, view a transcript of an interview she gave on American congregations.