Senior Capstone Presentations. The most important academic event for our Department is the Senior Capstone Presentation evening, when our students enrolled in POSC396 Senior Capstone Project give oral presentation of their capstone work-in-progress. All junior and senior political science majors are invited to attend the Spring Senior Capstone Presentations on Wednesday, April 18, from 5:15pm to 8:00pm. This semester’s presentations will be held in the Senior Classroom A and B, and the Conference Rooms on the first and second floors of the Tinkham Veale University Center. As always, the event will feature a buffet dinner. This is a wonderful opportunity for POSC majors who will work on capstone projects next year to see what the capstone presentation experience is like, in preparation for their own work. It’s also a nice opportunity to support friends and classmates as they present their final disciplinary work to the Department. Please contact Jessica Jurcak (jkj22@case.edu) for further information.
Graduating Seniors. To our seniors, please note this link for information about registering for Commencement in Spring 2018!
Freedom of Speech. Last week I participated in a discussion on Free Speech and Academic Freedom at CWRU, as part of a presentation to the Academic Affairs and Student Life Committee of the Board of Trustees. I’ve been thinking recently about freedom of speech and its expression in institutions of higher education, and am grateful in particular to Professor Pete Moore, with whom I engaged in some rigorous and vigorous argument about freedom of speech, much to my benefit. Part of what informed my comments before the Board Committee was this statement about CWRU:
“The institution is committed to freedom of expression and the pursuit of truth in teaching and learning…. A commitment to truth in teaching and learning is paramount at CWRU…. “CWRU … encourages the free exchange of ideas.” (https://case.edu/provost/media/caseedu/provost/accreditation/Core_Component_2.D.pdf);
These commitments are unique as the primary defining foci of institutions of higher education.
My comments focused on four concerns about freedom of speech, with primary reference to teaching and learning in the undergraduate classroom in institutions of higher education. First, for universities and colleges, freedom of speech cares about content. In higher education, we are not interested in blather, in cant, or in empirical falsehoods. Our standards for freedom of speech within the institution are higher than is the case in daily discourse, because higher education needs free speech for exchanging ideas. We can give room for exchanges of opinions and preferences, but ideas are central.
Second, freedom of speech cares about context. In the classroom, we have internal inclusion, insofar as all CWRU students are welcome to enroll and, once enrolled, are free to sit in our classrooms and to speak. We are also concerned, however, with the challenges of internal exclusion, in the “ways that people lack effective opportunity to influence the thinking of others even when they have access to fora and procedures of decision-making” (Iris Marion Young, in Inclusion and Democracy, 2000, 55). It is possible to be present but still feel silenced. Such internal inclusion requires a context within which all can participate meaningfully. In particular, Young offers the concept of “greeting,” of acknowledging one another in their particularity…,” recognizing others, accepting “an ethical relation of responsibility for the other person” that constitutes public acknowledgement (Young 2000, 58). In the classroom, we create the context for meaningful freedom of speech, respectful of content, that a university education requires.
Third, freedom of speech is uncomfortable. Speaking freely requires facing the reality that what one is saying may ill-informed, unreflective, and empirically wrong. It also requires the recognition that others, with freedom of speech, may also speak back. To quote Jackson Pearce, “freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from judgment” or freedom from ideational conflict or disagreement.
Finally, in the university, freedom of speech is continuous, by which I mean it takes place not in a single or even singular event but rather unfolds across time. One can wait to speak; one can speak, reflect, and speak again; one can consider and then defend the content of one’s speech. Just as teaching and learning are processes, freedom of speech in universities is a process of meaning-making, the construction of knowledge, and the pursuit of truth, with speech in interaction moving across time.
As I sat down to write these comments, I found that I had already written something similar in the March 6, 2017, Newsletter. You may find those comments in the Newsletter archives on our POSC webpage here.
With all best wishes,
Karen
Karen Beckwith
Flora Stone Mather Professor
Chair, Department of Political Science
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
I’ll be damned if I’ll defend to the death your right to say something that’s statistically incorrect.
- Undergraduate students are encouraged to apply for the second annual Arnaud Gelb Journalism Awards and Internship Grants, featuring up to $2,000 in prize money and internship funding. Applications are due March 19.
- Students are invited to apply for the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Award. The award in her honor was established to recognize an underrepresented undergraduate student for significant contributions to campus life, scholarship and community service. Applications are due March 4.
- The Career Search Guide is a book of “everything career” with content written by the CWRU Career Center staff, and it covers topics ranging from career exploration and decision making to gaining field-related experience to applying to graduate or professional school or getting a post-graduation job, plus the details in between.
- Stay up to date with the department by following our Twitter feed! Check it for day to day opportunities and information!
- Like us on Facebook! Our department will be regularly posting events, opportunities, and general information to our page!
Friday Lunch: The Past and Future of Net Neutrality
March 2, 12:30-1:30p.m., KSL Dampeer Room
Join CWRU Law School Professor, Aaron Perzanowski, for a discussion on the history and the future of Net Neutrality following the December 14 FCC vote to repeal “Net Neutrality” regulations on internet service providers.
Cleveland Humanities Festival
March 1-April 13
The 2018 Cleveland Humanities Festival explores the roles of health, health care, and the medical in culture and society from a variety of perspectives in history, literature, and the arts.
Diversity 360 Lunch and Learn: “Moving Toward a Complete History: Recognizing Women as Historical Agents”
March 2, 12:45p.m., Thwing Center 224
In honor of Women’s History Month, Lisa Nielson, director of the Flora Stone Mather Center for Women, will give a presentation reconstructing history to be more inclusive and recognizing women and other gender identities as historical agents with an open dialogue following.
Humanities Career Meet-Up
March 2, 12:45-2:00p.m., Clark Hall 206
March 7, 12:00-1:15p.m., Clark Hall 206
Join Lisa Grisez-Shullick, Assistant Director for Student Experience, from the CWRU Career Center for a Career Meet-up specifically for Humanities undergraduate students. In these sessions, Humanities students will receive resume development support, navigation tips for the Handshake career management system, and other helpful guidance for the career planning process.
Annual Anthropology Lecture Series featuring Sara Thiam
March 6, 4:30-5:30p.m., Mather Memorial 201
Sara Thiam, visiting Assistant Professor in the CWRU Department of Anthology, will present the lecture, “Perpetrator-less Child Trafficking in West African Qur’anic Schools: Force Begging, Aid and Children’s Rights in Senegal an Mali.”
Contentious Politics and the Global Implications of Revolt and Revolution
March 6, 7:30-9:00p.m., Happy Dog (West Side Location)
Discussion with CWRU professors, Pete Moore, Ph.D. and Karen Beckwith Ph.D., on what constitutes and drives revolutions, their success and failure, and the global implications of revolutions in today’s society.
Our Newest Justice: Some Thoughts on Justice Gorsuch’s Debut
March 7, 4:30-5:30p.m., Moot Courtroom
Diane S. Sykes, Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh District, will offer some observations and analysis of our newest Supreme Court Justice’s early work.
Oman: An Island of Peace in the Middle East
March 7, 5:30p.m., The Union Club
A foreign policy forum with Her Excellency Hunaina Sultan al-Mughairy, the Omani Ambassador to the United States, on relations between the U.S. and Oman and Oman’s strategic position in the Middle East. Student tickets are $5.
Think Forum: Jill Lepore
March 7, 6:00p.m., Maltz Performing Arts Center
Jill Lepore, historian and writer for The New Yorker, kicks off the spring Think Forum series with her talk “American History from Beginning to End.” Lepore will explore the question: “Can a divided nation have a shared past?” She also will discuss the challenges of writing the history of the United States in a time of division.
A Celebration of Women’s Leadership
March 8, 8:00a.m.-1:30p.m., TVUC Ballroom
The Flora Stone Mather Center for Women hosts celebration of female leadership, including two panels of women leaders who will discuss taking risks, navigating transitions and their experiences with challenging new leadership roles. RSVP by February 28.
Content Moderation in an Age of Extremes
March 8, 4:30-5:30p.m., Moot Courtroom
Rebecca Tushnet, the Frank Stanton Professor of First Amendment Law at Harvard, discusses content moderation and the multiple types of actors in intermediary space being recruited into policing content.
Friday Lunch: Law Enforcement and the Opioid Crisis
March 9, 12:30-1:30p.m., KSL Dampeer Room
Join David Flannery, Professor and Director of Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education, to discuss his research on how deaths from drug use became a medical and public health, rather than a law enforcement, issue.
“The Everyday Vigilance Required to Make Real Progress Toward Racial Equity & Inclusion”
March 28, 3:00p.m., TVUC Ballroom C
Mark Joseph, PhD, the Leon Bevis/Marguerite Haynam Associate Professor in Community Development in the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, will discuss “The Everyday Vigilance Required to Make Real Progress Toward Racial Equity & Inclusion.” Joseph is also the founding director of the National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities and faculty associate for the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development.
Internship and Fellowship Opportunities
The Ohio Legislative Service Commission: 2019 Legislative Fellowship Program
The LSC Legislative Fellowship Program is a paid, full-time, professional, 13-month experience for college graduates who will have completed their bachelor’s degree by December 2018. This program provides practical experience in the legislative process and in legislative research. Applications must be postmarked by April 1.
Cleveland Council on World Affairs
CCWA offers a variety of internship opportunities during the Spring, Summer and Fall. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Congresswoman Marcia Fudge
Unpaid internship opportunities are available at Congresswoman Fudge’s Washington, D.C. and Warrensville Heights, OH offices. There is no application deadline; interns are accepted throughout the year.
Post Baccalaureate Fellowship for Study Abroad
The Wright Plaisance fellowship in the amount of $20,000 will be awarded to a student planning to study at a European or South American university after graduation. Applications are due May 1.
College of Arts and Sciences Experiential Learning Fellowships
The Experiential Learning Fellowships were established to encourage and support individual undergraduate student projects in the humanities, arts and social sciences for the purpose of providing opportunities for experiential learning to students seeking a major or minor in the College of Arts and Sciences. The Traub Fun, specifically, was established to support declared majors who are pursuing degrees offered by the College of Arts and Sciences related to the history, politics, public policy, or economics of the Northern Ohio region.
Ken Harbaugh for Congress
Working on a U.S. Congressional campaign offers an exciting and immersive experience, especially in a swing district. Interns gain practical work experience by handling a variety of field, communications, and tech-related responsibilities. Ideal candidates should demonstrate enthusiasm, flexibility, and commitment to fighting for all Ohioans. To apply, send your resume to Tom Smith, Team Harbaugh’s Operations Specialist, at tom@kenharbaughforcongress.com.
The Fund for American Studies
The Fund for American Studies runs several internship programs in Washington D.C. and abroad throughout the year. During D.C. programs, students live on campus at George Washington University and take between 3-12 credit hours of courses and intern 30-35 hours per week at government agencies, Congressional offices, policy groups, think tanks, media outlets, or nonprofit organizations. Applications are due March 13.
U.S. Department of State Internships
Gain valuable experience working in U.S. embassies and consulates either in the U.S. or abroad. Applications are due March 2.
Alexandra Piepho Learning and Life Scholarship Fund
This scholarship was established to honor Alexandra Piepho, a promising member of the class of 2016, and her passion for exploration and learning with a variety of enriching interests in both the sciences and the arts. Applications are due March 12.
Study Abroad Scholarships
The College of Arts and Sciences and the Eirik Borve Fund for Foreign Language Instruction will award 40 $1,000 scholarships to undergraduates enrolled in CWRU courses abroad in the summer of 2018.
Public Service Scholarship
The B.A. Rudolph Foundation Public Service Scholarship supports female undergraduate students who are applying to or have secured an unpaid internship in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Internships in Maryland and Virginia are fine, as long as they are generally near Washington, D.C. Applications are due April 11.
Ohio Conference of Community Development Foundation Public Service Scholarship
Through the generosity of the OCCD membership and friends our organization has been able to offer scholarships of up to $2000 to students and young professionals pursuing advanced degrees in the profession of community and economic development. The scholarship fund was established to honor two men who dedicated their careers to public service. Applications are due April 13.
Cleveland Council on World Affiars
CCWA is now hiring energetic and creative people to join their team. Current open positions include Manager of Student Education Programs and Administrative Coordinator (full-time).
Medical Scribe
ScribeAmerica hires and trains anyone interested in a career in medicine. We provide paid classroom and clinical training in the emergency department to prepare applicants to be Emergency Physician Scribes. The role of an ER Scribe offers exciting first-hand experience in the emergency department and full one-on-one shifts working with board certified emergency physicians.
Volunteer at Model UN Conference
March 6 and 7, CWRU Campus
Volunteer at the 2nd annual High School Model UN Conference. Contact International Studies major Jason Guo by March 2 to sign up.
Ohio Congressional Candidate Grant Goodrich
Grant Goodrich, CWRU Director of The Great Lakes Energy Institute, is running for Congress in Ohio’s 16th District. Marine Corps veteran, farm-owner, and energy leader, Grant is running on a platform of better governance and more responsible politics, and he is looking for enthusiastic volunteers to support his efforts. Please visit his website for more information.
- In honor of Women’s History Month, check out “12 Quotes from Inspiring Women”, and “7 Interesting Facts about 21st Century Ladies.”