Symposium #1 — The History of the Minnesota Poll

Interdisciplinary Collaborative Workshop: 
Eighty Years of the Minnesota Poll
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Agenda

Friday, November 15, 2024
11:30am – 3:30pm
University Hall, McNamara Alumni Center
200 SE Oak St, Minneapolis, MN 55455

Featured Speakers

Benjamin Toff is Director of the Minnesota Journalism Center, and an Associate Professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. He is also the Workshop Lead for the Interdisciplinary Collaborative Workshop (Principal Investigator) project on the Minnesota Poll. He studies public opinion, political communication, digital media, and changing journalistic practices and is co-author of Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism (2023, Columbia University Press). He is currently working on a new book exploring the role played by opinion surveys in news coverage of politics. He previously worked as a professional journalist, mostly as a researcher at the New York Times. 

Sid Bedingfield is an Associate Professor of journalism history. His research and teaching focus on journalism's role in democratic societies during times of political and cultural change, with a particular emphasis on civil rights and racial politics. He has been publishing peer-reviewed studies in the fields of journalism history and media studies since 2010, and is an expert in historical techniques to connect journalism archives with public opinion data that will be relevant to studying the Minnesota Poll and its historical role. 

Kathleen Weldon is the Director of Data Operations and Communications at the Roper Center. She joined the Roper Center in 2014 as Research Coordinator. Kathleen manages data provider relations, oversees the data curation process, plans archival development, and works closely with the IT development team in building new user tools. A graduate of Wesleyan University with a BA in English, she started her career in public opinion at Harvard University designing surveys with media and foundation partners.

Patricia Moy is the Christy Cressey Professor of Communication and associate vice provost for academic and student affairs at the University of Washington. A scholar of political communication and public opinion, she is a former editor of Public Opinion Quarterly and currently serves as editor-in-chief of Oxford Bibliographies in Communication. Moy is a former president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, its Midwest chapter (MAPOR), the World Association for Public Opinion Research, and the International Communication Association, where she is also an elected fellow. Moy is a member of the Census Bureau’s Scientific Advisory Committee.

Rob Daves directed the Minnesota Poll between 1987 when he joined the Star Tribune as an assistant managing editor and 2007 when the newspaper shut down the polling unit. Before joining the Star Tribune he was a reporter and editor for a number of North Carolina newspapers. In addition to directing the newspaper’s polling unit, he also served as a data journalist working with all departments and investigative reporters. After leaving the Star Tribune he was principal at Daves & Associates Research where he taught and conducted research for national and international clients including NASA, the U.S. Air Force, USAID, and locally for many market research companies and state agencies. Daves is a past president and fellow of the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research. He is past president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, where he received its Innovators Award in 2003 as a part of a team that developed a way to define and measure survey response rates. Daves holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina and a bachelor of science degree in sociology (magna cum laude) from Western Carolina University.

Matt DeLong is an editor on the Minnesota Star Tribune's audience team. He oversees the Minnesota Poll, working with media partners to develop poll questionnaires and wrangling the resulting data to make it accessible for our reporters and readers. He also writes Nuggets, a free, weekly email newsletter about legal cannabis in Minnesota. He has written numerous reader-focused guides and FAQ articles on a wide range of topics.

Craig Helmstetter, Ph.D., is the founding Managing Partner of the APM Research Lab (www.apmresearchlab.org), a one-of-a-kind data journalism hub for American Public Media Group – including its Marketplace, Minnesota Public Radio News and Southern California Public Radio (LAist) newsrooms – and beyond. Helmstetter is a member of both the American Association for Public Opinion Research, where he serves on the Transparency Initiative Coordinating Committee, and the American Sociological Association. Helmstetter joined American Public Media from Wilder Research, where he was the founding project director of Minnesota’s Homeless Management Information System and where he helped to establish and then lead the Minnesota Compass initiative. He holds both a master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Oregon.