The particular topics for each semester will be determined by participants. One goal of the group is to serve as a catalyst for interdisciplinary research projects. Latin American Data is a cooperative effort between the Odum Institute and the UNC Institute for Latin American Studies. Its primary focus is the construction of a data set for the comparative analysis of economic, social, and political developments. The group will meet monthly to explore the social goals inherent in such a mandate and the effectiveness of such a mandate in achieving these social goals.
More information is available on the group's website .
This may include in-depth interviews, participant observation, focus groups, or text analysis. Members of the group present their ongoing research and ideas in-progress. Religion and American Culture fosters research and collaborative work on the relationship between religion and public life in America, focusing on how contemporary religious identities and public life are negotiated. The group organizes seminars for presenting research results and sponsors lectures by visiting scholars from a variety of fields. Scholarly Communication addresses a variety of issues, including information policy, copyright, the academic reward system, academic publishing, the potential for new communications technologies, the economics of publishing, and the effect of the changes in scholarly disciplines on publishing.