Dear Friends of the Citrin Center,
We again begin by expressing our hope that you and your families are weathering the pandemic well and with us hoping for a return to normalcy. In that vein, the Citrin Center hopes that the coming year’s events will have an in-person component. We learned that conducting events on Zoom had the advantage of allowing people from around the country and abroad to join our
evens and we hope to sustain this growth in interest by presenting our events in a hybrid form. The in-person component will introduce speakers to the Center in situ and allow a local audience to interact with them on a personal basis; at the same time Zoom will make the webinar available to broader participation.
Review Of 2020-2021 Events
Despite the challenge of coordinating speakers in different time zones, the Citrin Center presented a full slate of events last year. All can be seen on heard by connecting through the EVENTS link on the Center website, https://citrincenter.berkeley.edu.
A highlight of the fall was the 2020 Citrin Award Lecture, “The Upswing” delivered by Professor Robert Putnam of Harvard University. Three other panels spoke to central issues of
national politics:
- “Race and Public Opinion: Today in Historical Perspective.”
- “The Last Ten Days: Countdown to the 2020 Vote.”
- “Post-Mortem: Why It Happened and the Implications for American Democracy.”
In Spring 2021, four panels on national and California politics attracted large audiences: - “The Future of the Republican Party after the Trump Presidency.”
- “Free Speech and Academic Freedom: Opinion, Policy, and What Is to Be Done.”
- “President Biden’s First 100 Days: An Assessment.”
- “Redistricting California: The Second Round for the Citizens Commission”
Coming Soon – Fall 2021
This fall, the Center is co-sponsoring two events on the California Recall Election with the Institute of Governmental Studies and the California Constitution Center of Berkeley law
- “California Votes: The Effort to Recall Governor Newsom” (Zoom Webinar, September 10, 2021, 12-1pm)
- “Post-Mortem: Should the Recall be Recalled or Reformed? (Zoom Webinar, September 24, 2021, 4-6pm)
On October 7, Professor Diana Mutz of the University of Pennsylvania will deliver the 2021 Citrin Award Lecture: “Winners and Losers: A Psychological Perspective on Globalization.”
Please sign up to attend these events on our website: https://citrincenter.berkeley.edu.
Additional programs are in the works, but we are pleased to announce now that next spring we finally will hold the delayed Citrin Center Conference on the significant topic “Is Misinformation a Threat to American Democracy?” Please be on the lookout for additional announcements.
Graduate Student Fellows
This fall the Citrin Center is initiating its Fellows Program, created to recruit promising scholars in public opinion research to UC Berkeley. The Graduate Admissions Committee for the Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science identified outstanding applicants with the relevant interests to be Citrin Fellows. Fellows are provided with a $2000 research grant to help launch their research. Matt Easton is the inaugural Citrin Fellow and joins the Berkeley community this fall.
Matt Easton graduated from Brigham Young University in 2019 as the Political Science valedictorian. His article “The Democracy of Dating: How Political Affiliations Shape Relationship Formation” was published in the Journal of
Experimental Political Science. His research portfolio has received a variety of accolades, including first place in Civic Engagement at the Mary Lou Fulton Undergraduate Research Conference. He has worked as a research assistant to Dr. John Holbein and as fellow to the Center of the Study of Elections
and Democracy (CSED). He interned with the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva and researched public policy in New Delhi, India. Matt recently worked as a political campaign organizer. He is particularly interested in research
questions pertaining to political polarization in the United States. His broad research interests are in American politics, public opinion, and political behavior.
Graduate Student Research
The Citrin Center also is expanding its program of research grants to current Berkeley graduate students in Political Science and will soon be accepting new applications. The results of these research projects will be presented in a mini conference in spring and will be posted on the Center website as well.
In the Citrin Center offices, we bid farewell to graduating undergrad student Camryn Wood who has now joined Teach for America. We welcome Gracielle Li who will joining us this fall to help.
The activities of the Citrin Center are made possible by your interest and financial support. We thank you for your engagement in Citrin Center events and look forward to continuing to be a resource for the University and the larger community by providing cutting-edge knowledge on issues of ongoing relevance to our country’s politics.
Sincerely,
Gabriel Lenz,
Chair, Faculty Executive Committee