This roundtable Rethinking the Political Science Major (audio), chaired by John T. Ishiyama of University of North Texas and featuring J. Cherie Strachan of Central Michigan University, Whitney Lauraine Court of College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, and Amber Dickinson of Oklahoma State University, examines trends within the discipline rethinking the structure and function of the undergraduate political science major in the context of shrinking enrollments within the major, changing student demographics, and evolving workforce demands.
Topics include:
Discussion about ways the major can revitalize itself in the face of changing times, growing undergraduate participation by female, minority, and non-traditional students, and declining political ambitions among female and minority students uncomfortable with the combative climate of modern-day politics.
Ideas about how the discipline can restructure itself and engage in strategic planning to meet the needs of diverse student populations and encourage political participation by underrepresented groups.
Conversation about ways that the major could better prepare students with in-demand skills required by employers and re-brand itself to emphasize workforce relevance and encourage increased interest from undergraduate students.
In the exhibition hall at MPSA, it is easy enough to get stuck in the book displays or free coffee stands. But for those who push past the publishing stands, an ecosystem of poster presentations awaits.
This year, MPSA experimented with a new presentation format, Standing ePanels, which include up to eight papers and offer students a chance to share a digital poster or brief PowerPoint showcasing their research. The Standing ePanels covered a range of topics from public policy to international institutions to political rhetoric; I watched several presentations across panels and was overwhelmingly impressed by the sophisticated data analysis and sharp presentation skills.
I also enjoyed the chance to take a more active role in a Standing ePanel. I was assigned as a discussant and chair of a session on social issues, which featured papers on a diverse range of topics including international adoption law, gender representation in textbooks, and the relationship between trade and natural disaster recovery. In the chaos of the Palmer House and the bustle of the exhibition hall, this small group of young scholars engaged in a supportive space for feedback and skill-building. Jennifer Wu of Dartmouth College conducted a survey experiment on Qualtrics to understand how gender affects perceptions of politicians’ uncivil behavior. Talahiva Salakielu of Brigham Young University Hawaii used multivariate regressions to analyze novel survey data on the dropout rates of female and international students at her university. Tatiana Hulan from Lake Superior State University conducted interviews with a Russian adoption agency to understand how the country’s ban on international adoption has affected children.
Similar to a traditional panel, there was a mix in the presented works’ progress. While some of the research was conducted as part of an undergraduate thesis or capstone project and written up in a very polished manner, several of the papers were assignments for seminars that professors saw promise in. Everyone was eager for feedback, and the discussant comments balanced clarifying questions and suggestions for future extensions.
While an undergrad, I participated in several research workshops at my own university, but never would have dreamed of presenting such sophisticated data analysis at one of the discipline’s largest conferences. Before the panel, I asked the presenters how they came to know about MPSA. Most mentioned hearing about the opportunity through their department, and two said their advisors encouraged them to apply.
Undergraduate students obviously stand to benefit from participating in a Standing ePanel. They offer an opportunity to practice building a slide deck, develop presentation skills, and experience the interactive engagement of a traditional panel. Graduate students can also build important skills through the ePanels. Serving as a discussant and moderating a panel as chair are foundational to the discipline, but rarely explicitly taught in PhD programs. This was the first time I have chaired an academic panel and given formal discussant comments; the chance to build these skills was an unexpected bonus of coming to MPSA for me.
I was especially touched by the earnest compliments and congratulations after the Standing ePanel finished and hope to see these young scholars at future MPSA meetings.
About the Author: Colleen Wood is a PhD student at Columbia University. Her research focuses on identity, migration, and the state in Central Asia. She writes about Central Asian society and politics for The Diplomat and is also a blogger for the 2019 MPSA conference in Chicago. Get in touch with Colleen on Twitter at @colleenewood or email at c.wood@columbia.edu.
This MPSA roundtable session on “Using Experiments in Political Science”, chaired by Rick K. Wilson of Rice University features Alexa Bankert of the University of Georgia, Oliver James of the University of Exeter, Costas Panagopoulos of Northeastern University, and David Nickerson of Temple University.
The panel members discuss the use of experiments in political science and the implications of experimental research for both the study and practice of politics.
Highlights from the discussion include the benefits and potential drawbacks of building a cutting-edge lab on a university campus to conduct experimental research, as well as opportunities to do experiments with big data, doing research while working with political campaigns, field experiences of a political scientist working with public organizations on policy experiments, and strategies for publishing experimental research in major academic journals.
Each panelist describes risks and benefits related to their particular field of expertise related to experiments and provides tips and advice for conducting and publishing research experiments.
In this public engagement roundtable from the 2018 MPSA conference, Michelle Kukoleca Hammes of Saint Cloud State University, Derrick Carter of Valparaiso University Law School, and Jared Wesley of the University of Alberta examine “pracademics” or the intersection of practical politics with academic study and the field of political science.
Drawing from personal experiences, the panelists discuss the practice of political science in the legislative context and the separation of academics from legislation and policymaking, while examining ways the discipline could reach out to communities to integrate students and professors with real-world community needs.
Discussing strategies for bridging the gap between political science and politics, the panelists discuss the importance of linking academic subject matter with real-life issues for students and look at ways non-elected bureaucrats or practitioners can work collaboratively with academics and students to improve research, scholarship, and policy outcomes.
This MPSA roundtable session on “MPSA Roundtable: The Path to Full”, hosted by the Midwest Women’s Caucus and chaired by Tiffany Barnes of the University of Kentucky, features James Adams of University of California, Davis, Leslie Schwindt-Bayer of Rice University, and Miki Kittilson of Arizona State University, Tempe.
This panel examines the path to full professorship by facilitating a discussion of the participants’ journeys to become full professors.
Highlights from the discussion include important points in the transition between the associate and full professor levels, including the importance of career mentoring during this time, and advice on moving from the associate to full professor level. Questions discussed during the roundtable address what it means to be a full professor, what this looks like at different institutions, and what being a full professor means to each of the panelists.
Topics of discussion include:
New opportunities for longer term or higher risk projects.
By Zachary A. McGee of the University of Texas at Austin
At the start of the 115th Congress the Republican Party finally achieved unified government for the first time in more than a decade. Unfortunately for Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, his conference was not unified, and in fact, they were prepared to organize against him. My project seeks to highlight the power of an understudied set of actors who are important for understanding dynamics in the lower chamber of Congress.
Intraparty organizations, such as the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) or the Republican Study Committee (RSC), play a critical role in rank-and-file members extracting benefits from powerful party leaders. Ruth Bloch Rubin shows the power these members can have when they organize in her recent book Building the Bloc. More specifically, she shows that these groups are able to obtain better committee assignments, legislative concessions, and privileged access to party leaders. My project builds on her work by asking whether the extraction of these benefits might lead to retribution by the party in subsequent electoral cycles and how these groups might insulate themselves from that retribution.
In the modern Congress members, not their parties, generate most of their own financial support. That is, members build their own war chests and most members give some of their money to their fellow members. This practice is especially prominent among party leaders or ambitious members seeking more power but has also gradually grown to be used by almost all rank-and-file members as well. At the 2017 MPSA conference, I presented a paper entitled “Keeping Your Friends Close: A Study of Punishment and Intraparty Insurgency.” In that paper, I argue that, in the same way that party leaders can raise and distribute funds to members in return for loyalty, intraparty organization members can raise and distribute funds to fellow group members for their loyalty and protection after squabbles with party leaders.
To test my claims about intraparty organizations’ electoral cooperation and political party retribution, I examine the House Republican Party in the 2014 and 2016 election cycles. My analysis focuses on the well-established Republican Study Committee and the newly established, and already infamous, House Freedom Caucus. I use social network analysis to map the member-to-member contribution networks for all House Republicans. That is, I create a network wherein each member of the House Republican Party is linked to every other member they transferred money to in each given election cycle. The contribution data are from itemized Leadership Political Action Committee (LPAC) disbursement data from the Federal Election Commission.
Figure 1: Member-to-Member Network (2016 Electoral Cycle) Note: Rank-and-file members are red nodes, party leaders and committee chairs are purple nodes, and House Freedom Caucus members are green nodes.
My analysis reveals that members who chose to join the House Freedom Caucus altered their electoral disbursements to disproportionately support fellow group members. In fact, I find not only an increase in HFC members’ activity but also that they cluster together in the 2016 network. This cluster, defined by HFC-centric disbursements, reveals three potential HFC members that do not formally affiliate with the group: Pete Sessions (TX-32), Daniel Webster (FL-11), and Thomas Massie (KY-4). This finding is particularly interesting since the formal HFC roster is not public knowledge.
The pattern of support identified within the House Freedom Caucus does not exist among members of the larger and older Republican Study Committee. In other words, there is no clear financial relationship between members of this well-established intraparty organization. This finding illustrates that electoral coordination is not uniform across all intraparty organizations, which is interesting because we know almost nothing about what attributes of these groups leads to more or less cohesive electoral strategies. Clearly, more work to parse out across-group variation is necessary.
Finally, I find that non-HFC House Republicans opted to support HFC members less after the group formally organized (i.e. in the 2016 electoral cycle). While I provide evidence that co-partisans treat intraparty organization members differently before and after their formation, one can only speculate about the extent to which this coordination was ordered by party leaders. Whether or not party leaders are able to execute micro-level management of their members’ contributions to one another is an interesting question. Unfortunately, evidence to answer this question remains elusive. Nevertheless, the management of intraparty organizations by party leaders remains an area ripe for scholarly inquiry.
The analysis presented in my paper provides an important first step in understanding how intraparty organizations persist to consistently extract benefits from party leaders (e.g. the House Freedom Caucus) or become bloated and ineffective (e.g. the Republican Study Committee). Moreover, the collective partisan responses to intraparty organization coordination suggest that these groups are likely perceived to have some impact on the legislative process causing members to withhold support from their colleagues who opt-in to these groups. It remains unclear how successful these groups actually are in impacting the policy process though.
For scholars, this project also demonstrates that member-to-member contribution networks are a useful tool for studying intraparty organizations. I presented an empirical evaluation of the electoral coordination of these groups, but I also showed that networks can be used to identify potential group members for groups with secret membership rolls (like the HFC). This method can certainly be applied to other groups like the Tuesday Group or the Blue Dog Democrats.
Outside of its academic contributions, my paper suggests that pundits and the public alike should not underestimate the power and longevity of well-organized groups of rank-and-file members. These groups can successfully and consistently challenge powerful party leaders and coordinate for their own survival. The successes of the HFC since the start of the 115th Congress alone should cement this point. But, the HFC is not the first, nor will it be the last, group to form and extract benefits from party leaders. The takeaway for any given citizen then is this, if your member of Congress is a member of any intraparty organization then you should research that organization’s mission and take it into consideration when casting your next ballot.
About the Author: Zachary A. McGee is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on multiple aspects of intraparty organizations and their role in the U.S. Congress. More information can be found on his website www.zacharymcgee.net and he can be reached at zmcgee@utexas.edu.
McGee’s research “Keeping Your Friends Close: A Study of Punishment and Intraparty Insurgency“, presented at the 2017 MPSA conference, received the award for Best Paper Delivered by a Graduate Student.
At the 2018 Midwest Political Science Association Conference in Chicago, IL, I attended the session, Trying to Balance Work and Life with Joel Raveloharimisy from Andrews University, William Raymond from Benedictine College, Marjorie Hershey from Indiana University, and Jacob Holt from Columbus State University.
When I was in my second or third year of college, my advisor made the suggestion that I might like getting a PhD. “And doing what with that,” I asked. “You could become a professor.”
What?!
I was the first in my family to go to college. The daughter of a wine salesman and a waitress, I did not understand that college could be more than the place I learned; it could be the place I worked. I loved college, so this sounded wonderful!
Then I talked with my department advisor about my new plans. I was a German major and I would soon learn that because of the mass department closures happening around the country, the language professors were arguably the most bitter and resentful — not the kind of people who would offer encouraging advice for a starry-eyed undergraduate. He said, passively, “Yeah, sure. I suppose you could teach at one of the sister colleges.”
I heard similarly condescending remarks from a seemingly caring speaker at a conference on Cultural Diplomacy in Berlin. As we walked and talked and I shared my plans and ambitions with him, he said, “You know, it is very difficult to be a woman in academia.” This was in the year 2009.
Fast forward to my first job after undergrad, a service-learning coordinator at the University of Nevada, Reno, where I worked while applying to graduate programs. Their German department was on the butcher block at the time, and I made the mistake of seeking guidance from a few very angry professors, one who seemed to resemble Karl Marx more and more each day. Not surprisingly, these folks strongly advised against my future plans.
Despite the naysayers, I was admitted to the University of Chicago’s Masters of Social Sciences program. I was taking my first step toward getting a PhD! I eagerly met with one of the faculty members in the German department during the admitted student weekend, and he couldn’t have been more annoyed by my visit and showed no interest in me as a prospective student.
Needless to say, I finally got cold feet. At some point, the collective words of discouragement overrode my more fantastical, head-in-the-clouds side, and I declined the University of Chicago offer.
While my life is fulfilling and full of meaning and joy today, I can’t help but wonder if I would have also been happy in academia. Is academia as terrible — especially for women who want a family — as some of the naysayers would suggest? Even if a degree in German history was a suicidal mission, why was there so little encouragement along my path? The experience gave me the impression that professors are an unhappy lot. That they lack balance and are constantly stressed out.
But the same could be said for people across a wide array of professions.
Are people in academia less able to find balance? Does the nature of their work, with the competing pressures to research and teach, make balance impossible?
These questions led me to wander into the session on work/life balance at the 2018 Midwest Political Science Association conference. Marjorie Hershey offered some refreshingly sound and friendly advice. I found myself wishing I’d had her as an advisor and mentor while I was an undergraduate. To the academics with families, she said to get involved in your kids’ lives; get involved in your communities. She stressed the importance of getting involved in the world around you, no matter how busy you are with research and publishing. She gave this advice:
It is hard to create a relationship with people if you wait until you’ve done enough publishing. There will never be a time when you say, “I’ve done enough publishing, I’m done!”
She said academia is actually one of the more autonomous institutions to be employed; professors are allowed relative independence in their work compared to other professions. She suggested taking advantage of this and not falling into the trap of living by others’ rules or trying to mirror others’ lives.
Because of the relative autonomy and the ability to mostly choose research directions, she gave the advice to choose research pursuits that fit into our lives:
If your free time consists of what you have during nap time and nursery school, don’t become a political philosopher.
So, perhaps it is not a question of whether or not academics can balance work and life, but if they are in the appropriate academic domains given their life situations. However, it does seem like academics are uniquely positioned to fail worse than other professionals at the whole balance thing. They simultaneously need to be liked by their departments and offer their service to the university, research and publish endlessly, never ever really knowing what the magic number, and they are pressured to fill up seats in their classes with students who will give them high marks as teachers. The pressures are real, but perhaps not insurmountable, and perhaps not a reason to avoid the profession altogether.
So here are some tips from the panelists:
Don’t be discouraged and fearful about pressures — Know that pressure will exist in this space and experiencing that pressure doesn’t mean you are weak, unsuitable, or disliked
It’s easy to focus on what’s immediate rather than what’s important — don’t let yourself fall victim to this trap; prioritize work and life so that you can tackle what’s most important first
Don’t confuse the time you’re putting into a project with the quality of your work — “It’s not the hours you put in; it’s what you put into the hours.” — Jacob Holt
We can’t be all of the things at once, but we can be all of the things throughout our careers — Our careers are a marathon, not a sprint; you may be teaching heavy at one end of your career and research heavy at another end
Invest in something you are passionate about outside of work — whether it’s a creative project or triathlon training, you have to have something you care about that is not your teaching or research
And sometimes, work/life balance emerges naturally once a family enters the stage. When we’re single, work doesn’t necessarily need to be balanced with anything else. As someone from the audience shared, when he was single, he simple worked until his brain was fried and he couldn’t work anymore. The family is often the force that makes us create balance. However, it’s arguably a good idea to start working on balance, even if you don’t have a family; you’re probably not working as well as you’re capable of with that fried brain and 3.5 hours of sleep.
Alex Ellison is a blogger at the 2018 Midwest Political Science Association Conference in Chicago, IL. She is the Founding Director of MENTEE, a non-profit organization that helps immigrant, refugee, and low-income high school students gain career exposure through job shadows and mentorship. She is also an independent education consultant and college counselor. Read more from Alex Ellison on Medium.
Each year at its annual conference, MPSA records dozens of professional development panels focusing on topics most relevant to researchers and to those who teach. Audio from the roundtable discussions is available to MPSA Members online by visiting the Highlighted Presentations Section of the website and selections are also available to the public as part of MPSA’s outreach to the discipline. As 2017 comes to a close, its time to take a look back at the five most popular of these audio recordings.
MPSA Roundtable on Career: What to Do/Not Do at a Job Talk (Read the Recap) –Listen in as Elizabeth A. Bennion of Indiana University-South Bend chairs the MPSA Career Roundtable on “What to Do and What Not to Do at a Job Talk” with Mary Hallock Morris of University of Southern Indiana and David C. Wilson of University of Delaware. During the discussion, the members of the panel share their observations on how to know if the university is a good fit for you (personally and professionally) and what can make you stand out as a successful candidate.
MPSA Roundtable: Applying to Graduate School (Read the Recap) –Mackenzie H. Eason of the University of California – Los Angeles chairs this MPSA roundtable session on “Applying to Graduate School” with Coty J. Martin, West Virginia University, Joan Ricart-Huguet, Princeton University, and Jovan Milojevich, University of California-Irvine. Members of the panel discuss questions and issues related to applying to graduate programs, such as when and where to apply, and how to make yourself a more appealing and ultimately successful candidate for admission.
MPSA Roundtable: Teaching LGBTQ Politics (Read the Recap) – Susan Burgess, Ohio University-Main Campus, chairs this discussion among panelists and participants in the audience on Teaching LGBTQ Politics. Panelists include Christine Keating of Ohio State University-Main Campus, Megan Elizabeth Osterbur of Xavier University of Louisiana, Marla Brettschneider of University of New Hampshire-Main Campus, and Courtenay Daum of Colorado State University-Fort Collins. Session topics included selecting topics, readings, and pedagogical strategies pertaining to teaching LGBTQ politics classes.
MPSA Roundtable On Congressional Leadership Through The Eyes Of Randy Strahan And Barbara Sinclair (Read the Recap) – Sean M. Theriault of the University of Texas at Austin, chairs this MPSA roundtable session on “Congressional Leadership through the Eyes of Randy Strahan and Barbara Sinclair” with Gregory Koger, University of Miami, Daniel John Palazzolo, University of Richmond, Kathryn Pearson, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, David W. Rohde, Duke University and Matthew N. Green, Catholic University of America. Members of the panel remember the contributions of Randy Strahan and Barbara Sinclair to the field of political science through the sharing of memories and personal reflections and take an early look at congressional leadership in the 115th Congress.
MPSA Roundtable: Teaching Research Methods to Undergraduates (Recap Not Available) –Nathan D. Griffith of Belmont University chairs the MPSA roundtable session on “Teaching Research Methods to Undergraduates” with Binneh S. Minteh of Rutgers University-Newark, and Emily Clough of Newcastle University.
Many thanks to our panelists at the 2017 conference and congratulations to those with topics that have been shown to be among the most popular with listeners after the conference. You may share your expertise by participating as a panelist in one of MPSA’s Professional Development Roundtables at the 2018 conference in Chicago. MPSA seeks to organize a series of roundtable sessions on topics including public engagement, career development, publishing, teaching, and research methods. Learn more about the opportunity and volunteer your expertise as a panelist.
This MPSA roundtable session on “Public Engagement: Communicating and Promoting Your Research”, organized by Kathleeen Searles of Louisiana State University and Women Also Know Stuff and chaired by Julia Azari of Marquette University, features Lilly Goren of Carroll University and Jennifer M. Piscopo of Occidental College.
The panel examines strategies for the promotion of research and its communication and dissemination through public engagement.
Topics discussed include:
The importance of having an “elevator pitch” ready on the importance of public engagement and promoting the work of other scholars.
How to get involved with public engagement, including blogging, tweeting, publishing opinion pieces and fielding media questions.
The importance of being willing to discuss topics with the media that fall within your field of study, but are not necessarily your personal areas of expertise.
Sharing media interview opportunities with colleagues, especially those who are female, minority, or junior faculty members, when you don’t have time to speak to the media, or the subject matter is too far outside of your comfort zone.
Susan Burgess, Ohio University-Main Campus, chairs this discussion among panelists and participants in the audience on Teaching LGBTQ Politics. Panelists include Christine Keating of Ohio State University-Main Campus, Megan Elizabeth Osterbur of Xavier University of Louisiana, Marla Brettschneider of University of New Hampshire-Main Campus, and Courtenay Daum of Colorado State University-Fort Collins. Session topics included selecting topics, readings, and pedagogical strategies pertaining to teaching LGBTQ politics classes.
The LGBTQ Politics Teaching Collective, a project in which scholars simultaneously teach courses in LGBTQ politics during Spring 2018, was also introduced during this discussion.
Additional topics from the discussion include:
New strategies on teaching LGBTQ politics and queer theory
Addressing enrollment and environmental issues
Finding interdisciplinary partners on your campus
Overall themes and supplementary texts used when shaping syllabi
For more information or to join the LGBTQ Politics Teaching Collective (even if you are not teaching a related course in the Spring – all are welcome), contact Marla Brettschneider at marlab@unh.edu.
MPSA Blog 