Final grades are due to the Registrar today, as the 2018-19 academic year draws to a close. As faculty complete the few final tasks of the semester, and as our seniors prepare for commencement, it’s worth drawing attention to a minor entry on the Department’s homepage;

The Department of Political Science was successfully reviewed according to Ohio Department of Higher Education standards in 2019.

During the academic year, the political science faculty undertook a review of our degree programs, from our BA to our PhD, as required by the Ohio Department of Higher Education. Although the OHDE has long required a review of graduate programs, for the first time they also requested a review of undergraduate degree programs as well. Relying on our 2017 Strategic Plan, data from the Registrar’s Office, and our record of student and faculty achievement, we drafted and discussed an analysis of our degree programs. Three political scientists from other universities visited campus, speaking with our faculty and our students, and consulting with administrators in the College. As external evaluators, these political science colleagues provided a professional, and positive perspective on our degree programs and the state of the department, issuing an analysis that was clear-eyed, critical, and comprehensive. A final discussion with College administrators confirmed that the Department has successfully completed the ODHE review, a review that will permit us to move forward next year – when we hope to be able to search for additional tenure-track faculty and to review the POSC undergraduate curriculum.

Seed Sprint Proposals:  Institute for Democracy and Global Problems and a Center for Social Sciences

This semester also marked the development of several “seed sprint” proposals, in response to a call from Provost Ben Vinson. Although all proposals were intended to involve cross-department and cross-school collaboration, and hence no proposal came directly from the Department of Political Science, two proposals involving political science faculty reached the final round and were presented at the Think Big event last Friday. I look forward to seeing the results of these presentations and the response from the Provost’s Office to these and the several other proposals that were presented last week.
 
The first proposal involving our department is a cross-school collaboration to establish an Institute for Democracy and Global Problems, led by Professor Kelly McMann, that will address the major challenges of and to democracy, with specific regard to issues such as public health, climate change, international and cyber security, and infrastructural challenges. One of our POSC majors and one of our alumnae also joined this proposal.
 
The second is the proposal for a Center for Social Sciences, led by Professor Dale Dannefer, Chair of Sociology, and involving the Chairs of all social science departments (in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Weatherhead School), as well as faculty from MSASS, the School of Nursing, and the School of Medicine. A major impetus for this proposal is the need for social scientists in resolving major problems, including those that affect people worldwide. As the proposal argues, social scientists have developed the tools that are essential to understanding how to address major crucial issues that cannot be resolved by technology alone or by governments simply legislating policy. As the New York Times recently reported, “Odisha, one of India’s poorest states,” moved a million people out of the way of Cyclone Fani, averting mass casualties. As important as the massive communication and transportation efforts were, the ability of Odisha officials to persuade the population to cooperate and to evacuate peacefully is also the result of trust in government, willingness to believe government and meteorological reports, and the capacity of state actors to organize and implement the policy that kept so many people safe from what “could have been catastrophic.”  For example, as the US and other countries face suspicion about government public health policies (see here and here) and refusal to recognize climate change (see here and here), technology and science alone will not be able to provide responses to these challenges. As the Odisha example shows, only by working with social scientists to understand how citizens can be mobilized to act for the common welfare (and to ensure “herd immunity” against disease) or how democratic governments can implement crucial environmental policies that impose immediate costs upon their citizens, avoiding citizen free ridership without becoming autocratic, can these problems be addressed.

Concluding the Academic Year.
The final Newsletter of the academic year will be distributed next Friday. For now, best wishes for a happy, healthy, relaxing, and productive summer to all our POSC community. To our graduating POSC majors, I’ll look forward to seeing you at commencement.

Cheers,
Karen

Karen Beckwith
Flora Stone Mather Professor and Chair
Department of Political Science