Two emeriti faculty members at the University of Notre Dame, economist Charles Craypo and sociologist Richard Lamanna, are the inaugural recipients of the Rodney F. Ganey, Ph.D., Faculty Community-Based Research Award.p. Presented by the University’s Center for Social Concerns, the award is named after a former Notre Dame professor and recognizes the work of faculty members who have conducted research at the request of local nonprofit or community organizations. Craypo and Lamanna will be honored Thursday (May 9) at a dinner at Sacred Heart Parish Center on Douglas Road.p. A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 1978, Craypo has engaged in community-based research for many years. His study in the late 1980s of the effects of de-industrialization in “Rust Belt” cities examined in particular the closure of the Studebaker Corporation in South Bend. In the 1990s he was commissioned by the United Way of St. Joseph County to conduct a study of the “working poor,” the results of which were featured in a video production titled “Climbing the Down Escalator.”p. Lamanna, an expert on race, segregation and inequality, has been a member of the Notre Dame faculty for 38 years. His local research includes a decade-long series of reports written for the South Bend Human Rights Commission, based on its studies of residential segregation. More recently, he responded to a request by a coalition of the NAACP, Urban League, MinisterialAlliance and others to review and evaluate proposals for redistricting the South Bend Community School Corporation.p. Ganey was a member of the Notre Dame faculty from 1980-96, serving as associate director of the University’s Laboratory for Social Research, director of its Social Science Data Center and concurrent associate professor of sociology. While at Notre Dame, Ganey encouraged community-based initiatives among the faculty and was personally engaged in such research. He has been published and widely cited in health care journals such as Trustee, Nursing Spectrum, Healthcare Financial Management and the Journal of Healthcare Marketing.p. Ganey and Irwin Press, professor emeritus of anthropology at Notre Dame, founded Press Ganey Associates, Inc. in 1985. Based in South Bend, the company is now the nation’s leading research firm specializing in the measurement of patient satisfaction, serving more than 5,900 health care facilities and processing almost 7 million surveys annually.p. Ganey is actively involved in civic affairs, serving as a consultant to the Healthy Communities Initiative of St. Joseph County, the Infant Mortality Case Review Project, the county Health Department’s Chronic Disease Advisory Board, Real Services, the United Way of St. Joseph County and the Regional Genetics Center. He currently is on the board of directors for the United Way and Life Treatment Center.p. In addition to the new award, Ganey has funded a mini-grant program in support of Notre Dame faculty and students who join with community partners to conduct research on issues of concern to the South Bend area.
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