What a year 2020-2021 has been! Even with the challenges posed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Bureau of Sociological Research (BOSR) maintained our dedication to high-quality data collection for a wide variety of clients and projects. We are proud to continue our partnerships with faculty and students across the Nebraska system and at state and other agencies serving the state of Nebraska, collecting data geared toward understanding and improving the lives of Nebraskans. We also have increased our collaboration with the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, providing translations for 19 different projects into Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish. This collaboration, in its second year, facilitates understanding and access to important information across our diverse population, from materials on COVID-19 for the City of Lincoln to research projects by UNL faculty and more.
Much of the work we do collects data using telephone, mail and increasingly Web surveys. For instance, we continue to collect data for the Nebraska Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey over telephone and are in the 44th year of our omnibus Nebraska Annual Social Indicator Survey, and we continue to innovate on the management and methods for these surveys. But, this year had a new set of field observation studies, allowing BOSR staff and UNL students to
go out into the community to collect data (safely and following COVID-19 protocols!) in person. From observing whether drivers and passengers are wearing seatbelts for the Nebraska Department of Transportation to asking visitors to Nebraska’s state parks about their park visit and use for Nebraska Game and Parks Commission to observing how voters move through election voting sites, BOSR has been out in the community, working to actively understand what Nebraskans think and do.
Our work couldn’t be done without an excellent staff and—this year—six undergraduate and graduate student interns! One part that is particularly noteworthy are the accolades earned by our staff this year, especially while balancing remote and in-person work during most of the year. Two senior project managers, Amanda Ganshert and Nikki Gohring, were recognized at the university level for their leadership and management skills, and BOSR—as a whole—won the Nebraska DEI Collective Impact Award. More details—and additional awards—are provided in this report.
As we return to “normal” operations, we are reinvigorated to help researchers on and off campus understand what people and businesses think, feel, and do.
Kristen Olson
Director, Bureau of Sociological Research