A great divide between “Ivory Tower” academics and those engaged in applied politics characterizes popular perceptions for those on both sides of this chasm. Yet, after spending a year in Washington, D.C., as part of the APSA's Congressional Fellowship Program, it is evident that there are commonalities as well as differences between these two groups. However, applied career opportunities are rarely investigated by graduate students in political science, who aim instead for a tenured position in academe. According to the most recent data collected by the APSA, only 7 to 13% of Ph.D.s selected a non-academic position or career track during the period from 1990 through 2000, and this trend remained stable during the early part of this decade (Lopez 2003, 836).The author would like to thank Jeff Biggs, director of the Congressional Fellowship Program, and Michael Brintnall of the American Political Science Association. She also thanks Gene Alpert, Stan Bach, Arthur Burris, Beth Fuchs, John Haskell, Scott Keeter, Bill Koetzle, George Kundanis, Celinda Lake, Congressman Dan Lipinski, Thomas Mann, Norm Ornstein, Neil Pinney, John Ratliff, and Ben Scott for their contributions and insights. Those included in this study are not intended to be an exhaustive or representative list of political science Ph.D.s working in applied settings.

The Social Science Research Council, with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is pleased to announce a new program of fellowships and workshops for predissertation research and dissertation proposal development. The Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF) program is designed to intervene at a critical moment in the career development of graduate students in the humanities and social sciences by aiding their transition from students to researchers. The DPDF program invites interested faculty to participate as research directors leading groups of 10–12 graduate student fellows in two four-day workshops. Each group will be led by two research directors, who will receive a stipend of $7,500 each. More information about the program may be found at: www.ssrc.org/programs/dpdf.

CFP announces 2006-2007 fellows.

The APSA Nominating Committee welcomes your suggestions for candidates for 2007 Council seats and offices. This year, eight Council seats, three vice presidencies, and the offices of president-elect and secretary are open. Council members serve staggered two-year terms. The president-elect, vice presidents, and secretary all serve one-year terms.

A look at the Centennial Center for Political Science & Public Affairs.

“What do you do when the Supreme Court is wrong?” That question formed the title of a 1979 article in the Public Interest by the late Senator (and political scientist) Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and it resonates today across the political spectrum, as serious criticism of Supreme Court decisions can be found on both Left and Right. Of course if the Supreme Court has supreme authority over the meaning of the Constitution, then either it is incoherent to say the judges can be wrong or there is nothing anyone can do if they are. But everyone admits that erroneous constitutional decisions can evoke constitutional amendments. The question is, what can be done short of that?

Nominations for 2007 APSA Dissertation, Book, and Career Awards are now being accepted.

The 102nd APSA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia refocused the discipline's take on the true crux of politics: power. Program Co-Chairs Judith Goldstein of Stanford University and Rick Valelly of Swarthmore College worked closely with plenary speakers, theme panel participants, and with a 51-person Program Committee drawn from all of APSA's 35 organized sections to realize their central vision: a revival of the discipline's examination of how power is used (and abused) in politics.

For more than three decades, John Garcia has shaped American higher education and political science as a scholar, teacher, and leader. He provides guidance to fellow Latinos/as in the profession and inspiration to the next generation of scholars and students.

The American Political Science Association honored 19 scholars for their career achievements and outstanding research at the Awards Ceremony in Philadelphia. Hosted by 2006 Program Co-Chairs Rick Valelly and Judith Goldstein, the event began with a luncheon for the winners, their guests, and award committee members, and was followed by a ceremony presenting 19 prizes. Complete citations can be found in the Gazette section of this issue of PS (starting on page 1001).

Robert Alexrod, the Arthur W. Bromage Distinguished University Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Michigan. He has appointments in the Department of Political Science and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, became the Association's 103rd president on September 2nd at the Association's Annual Business Meeting when outgoing APSA President Ira Katznelson of Columbia University presented Axelrod with the Association gavel. Joining Axelrod in guiding the Association are six new officers. Eight new members of the council will be elected in an all-member electronic election during the month of October. Details on the results of the election will be available on the web and in the January issue of PS.

In an effort to increase graduate student participation in the Annual Meeting, the Association awarded 53 Advanced Graduate Student Travel Grants for the 2006 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. The names and institutional affiliations of the 2006 winners follow.

Ten outstanding students from the 2006 Ralph Bunche Summer Institute (RBSI) presented their research at the American Politics II and Teaching and Learning Poster Session at this year's Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. RBSI is hosted by Duke University and is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. The program is directed by Paula McClain, professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Social Sciences, at Duke University. The students were accompanied to this year's meeting by Professor Maurice Woodard, Howard University, and former director of minority affairs at APSA. This year's class of RBSI students who presented at this year's Annual Meeting:

Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor Society, proudly announces the winners of its awards for members and chapters for the 2005–2006 academic year.

In addition to awards conferred at the Association's Awards Ceremony on August 31, the following recognitions were made at the business meetings and receptions of APSA's Organized Sections.

Since 1972, I have monitored the participation of women at the American Political Science Association Annual Meetings. The reports have been published each year in PS: Political Science and Politics. (I'm planning to do this again this summer in Philadelphia.) From time to time, I have also authored surveys of female participation at regional meetings of political science associations.

The International Association for Political Science Students (IAPSS) is an international, politically independent, non-profit, student-run platform for political science students. IAPSS aims to have a global impact in the political science discipline by providing information on current events in the field to its members through its website, newsletter, and e-groups.

APSA international membership by country and by region, and upcoming international events in 2006 and 2007.

Politics are ubiquitous in social life, shaping all manner of interactions in so many spheres of human activity. From the playground to the retirement community, from the marketplace to the halls of government, from families to the global economy, we are constantly engaged in political struggles large and small. Political science, in turn, has long been fundamentally interdisciplinary, exchanging ideas, theories, data, and methods with fields from anthropology to zoology – and everything in between. As political science has become a more self-conscious discipline, it has simultaneously grown more aware of its intellectual debts and on-going contributions to cognate fields of study. The 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association will celebrate the interdisciplinary nature of political science and highlight new opportunities for intellectual exchange across disciplinary boundaries.

Editor's Note: The following is reprinted from AAUP's July-August 2006 issue of Academe with the permission of the AAUP. A more detailed history of the censure list can be found on the AAUP web site, <www.aaup.org>.