For half a century the Karl Schuessler institute of Social Research (KSISR) has been a home for social-scientific discovery and for excellence in graduate training. Founded in 1963 by the chair of the Department of Sociology, Karl Schuessler, the institute supports excellence in research and provides physical and intellectual space for graduate education through grant-writing workshops and consultation to students across the social sciences and to faculty in the nationally-ranked Sociology program. KSISR houses the Indiana Consortium for Mental Health Services Research (ICMHR), the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society (CRRES), and the long-running Social Research Practicum (SRP). The institute has also been the seeding ground for several successful campus programs, including the Center for Survey Research, the Bureau of Social Science Research (now the Social Science Research Commons) and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research summer methods workshop.
KSISR sponsors the Indiana Intensive Didactic Seminars (IIDS), covering a wide range of topics in social sciences methodology and led by advanced graduate students and faculty in the social sciences. KSISR is well-suited for use of restricted datasets that cannot be situated on a network, such as data from the National Center for Education Statistics. The institute provides a physical space and central locale for international visitors to become integrated into the Indiana University community. KSISR also provides space and research infrastructure for faculty with externally funded research projects.
Since 1995, the institute has been the home to the nationally-recognized Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program. PFF, having received the American Sociological Association’s Distinguished Contributions to Teaching Award in 2001, draws graduate students from across the social sciences. PFF provides detailed training for graduate students and it has also resulted in the dissemination of scholarship at professional conferences and numerous publications in national teaching journals. Alumni include a large number of recipients of the K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award from the American Association of American Colleges and Universities, and the Herman F. Lieber Award from Indiana University.
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