The College of Social Sciences and Public Policy (COSSPP) at Florida State University (FSU) is an undergraduate higher educational institution located in Tallahassee, Florida. It is one of 17 colleges that make up Florida State University. ^{1 2}

FSU held the 2025 conference for Election Science, Reform, and Administration (ESRA), an annual forum that invites mostly left-of-center academics, technology developers, and think tank staffers to share papers on alleged challenges that local election offices face. Speakers tend to focus on left-coded topics such as “misinformation” about the election system, methods to combat voters’ distrust of election officials, vote-by-mail, racism, gerrymandering, and ranked-choice voting experiments. The event was overseen by leaders from COSSPP and the LeRoy Collins Institute, a think tank housed at FSU. ^{3 4}

Background

The College of Social Sciences and Public Policy at Florida State University was founded in 1973 in Tallahassee, Florida under the name “the College of Social Sciences.” Around 2015, its name was changed to include “Public Policy,” at which time it adopted the acronym “COSSPP.” From its founding, the college has aimed to equip students with knowledge it claims is needed for them to become “leaders and innovators in private, public, and nonprofit settings.” ¹

COSSPP conceives of itself as an “offshoot” of FSU’s College of Arts and Sciences, one that focuses on “Economics, Geography, Sociology, and Government” as well as “Public Administration and Urban & Regional Planning.” It also features “vibrant interdisciplinary” fields such as “Demography,” “Public Health,” and “African-American Studies.” The school claims to be the “most demographically diverse and politically engaged” of FSU’s 17 colleges. ^{1 2}

As of 2025, the college had over 5,000 enrolled students and counted more than 56,000 alumni. ¹

Activities

In 2025, the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy highlighted several research projects from its faculty, including “Assessing the Potential for Transactive Energy Communities in Rural New Hampshire” and “Data Reporting and Quality Improvement for the Telehealth Minority Maternity Care Program.” ⁵

FSU held the 2025 conference for Election Science, Reform, and Administration (ESRA), an annual forum that invites mostly left-of-center academics, tech developers, and think tank staffers to share papers on alleged challenges that local election offices face. Speakers tend to focus on left-coded topics such as “misinformation” about the election system, methods to combat voters’ distrust of election officials, vote-by-mail, racism, gerrymandering, and ranked-choice voting experiments. ^{3 4}

The host committee of the 2025 ESRA conference included Lonna Atkeson, the director of the LeRoy Collins Institute; Brooke Beazer, the deputy director of the LeRoy Collins Institute as well as the founder and former leader of the “inclusive education” advocacy group TGN; Tonja Guilford, the chief of staff for COSSPP and assistant to dean Tim Chapin; and Press Jackson, the office administrator of FSU’s political science department and close associate of the LeRoy Collins Institute. The LeRoy Collins Institute is a state-wide public policy think tank housed by FSU. ^{4 6}

The 2025 conference featured discussions from Texas Tech University professor Joseph Coll, who researches “the differential effect of election policies on voter fraud beliefs and voter confidence between Black and white Americans” and “the racial threat foundations of support for voter qualifications”; FSU postdoctoral researcher Yimeng Li, who researches “voting by mail, provisional ballots, voter confidence, and voting technology”; and University of Missouri-St. Louis political science and gender studies professor Anita Manion, who researches “the impact of policy on issues of equity, particularly in areas of elections, educational policy, and local government.” Another member on the program committee was Mark Earley, a member of the executive committees of two federal bodies: the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC) and the Local Leadership Council of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), as well as a member of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Task Force on Elections and a representative of the Election Center for the U.S. Postal Service Mailers’ Technical Advisory Committee. ⁴

Leadership

As of 2025, the dean of FSU’s College of Social Sciences and Public Policy was Tim Chapin, who had held the post since his appointment in 2017. Chapin studies “urban redevelopment” and “how Florida’s demographic trends influence urban patterns and transportation systems.” ⁷

1. “History.” FSU – College of Social Sciences and Public Policy. Accessed September 17, 2025. https://cosspp.fsu.edu/about/history/.
2. “Academic Departments and Programs.” Florida State University. Accessed September 17, 2025. https://www.fsu.edu/academics/departments.html.
3. “About.” Election Science, Reform, and Administration Conference. Accessed September 17, 2025. https://esra-conference.org/about.
4. “About the 2025 Conference.” Election Science, Reform, and Administration Conference. Accessed September 17, 2025. https://esra-conference.org/2025-conference.
5. “COSSPP Research.” FSU – College of Social Sciences and Public Policy. Accessed September 17, 2025. https://cosspp.fsu.edu/research/.
6. “LeRoy Collins Institute.” FSU. Accessed September 17, 2025. https://lci.fsu.edu/.
7. “From The Dean.” FSU – College of Social Sciences and Public Policy. Accessed September 17, 2025. https://cosspp.fsu.edu/about/the-dean/.