Last fall, the 150 first-year students in George Mason University's Honors Program took part in what may have been a national first. In the weeks before the election, they conducted a national survey on attitudes and participation, the unweighted results of which are available for anyone's analysis at <http://gunston.gmu.edu/sdaweb>.

The purpose of this Section is to plan, develop, and implement professional activities for Association members with interests in federalism, intergovernmental relations and state and local government.

Background

The Nature of the Problem. Some years ago, when I had the privilege of serving as a program director at the National Science Foundation, the proposals I read left me with a distinct impression: many researchers presented exciting research ideas, but in a high proportion of cases the exciting ideas were embedded in horrendously constructed proposals. In relatively few cases were the proposals well constructed, with important elements missing or underdeveloped. One would often find, for example, after a clear initial statement of the research problem and an effectively executed literature review, a thin or nonexistent research design or, without transition, a statement of the statistics to be used. Hypotheses, where present, were often not derived from the discussed literature, or from any literature.

I. Constitutional Committees

Administrative Committee

The Administrative Committee consists of the president, president-elect, treasurer and four other Council members whose main duties include preparing agendas for Council meetings and annual business meetings, making recommendations to the Council, reviewing the budget and acting on behalf of the Council to dispose of policy issues deemed of insufficient weight to require decisions by the Council.

Citizen participation in the development of public policy concerning science and technology may sound like a good, and even a necessary, idea for a democratic society (Foltz 1999). But if the issue proves to be controversial, and if even the experts cannot agree, how can the average person play a meaningful role? Students who study all sides of a technical or scientific controversy are likely to feel that a consensus on public policy is impossible. It is not immediately obvious that ordinary citizens can help to forge a consensus.

Western Political Science Association Presents Annual Awards

As part of it 2001 Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, the WPSA presented five awards to outstanding scholars and students.

Pi Sigma Alpha Award, for the best paper at the 2000 WPSA meeting, to Robert W. Mickey, doctoral candidate, Harvard University, for his paper “Ruling Parties in a Bind: The Transitions of South Carolina and Mississippi in Comparative Perspective.

It is important to take stock of the status of women in the profession because the integration of women into the professional ranks of political science achieves two important goals: first, it opens the profession to the very best political scientists without regard to gender; second, it enables the profession to take account of the contributions of women to politics and so keeps the profession on the cutting edge of new gender-related research.

Present:

Council: Richard Brody, Valerie Bunce, Randall Calvert, Ada Finifter, William Galston, Robert Holmes, Robert Jervis (president), Robert Kaufman, Edmond Keller, Gary King, Atul Kohli, Sandy Maisel, Edward Mansfield, Doris Marie Provine, Robert Putnam (president-elect), David Rayside, Catherine Rudder, Mark Schneider, Christine Sierra, Lee Sigelman, Kathryn Sikkink, Richard Sisson, Sven Steinmo, Judith Stiehm, Katherine Tate, Margaret Weir, Susan Welch

Introduction

For over a decade, the Southern Political Science Association has been committed to assessing the status of women faculty members by regularly administering surveys to political science programs within the South. These surveys, sponsored by the SPSA and administered by the Committee on the Status of Women, have resulted in numerous recommendations for creating diversity within departments and gender equity within programs. In this article we examine the results of the Millennium Survey, the latest effort to evaluate the progress of female political scientists within the South. Our findings suggest that in the last 10 years women faculty have made great progress, especially in Ph.D. granting institutions where the number of women in tenured positions at the rank of associate and full professor has doubled since the last survey. This is an important shift from a trend noted in an earlier CSW survey and in a national report in the September–October 1998 issue of Academe where the author remarked that “Women, unlike men, traded off rank for institutional prestige. For women, the more prestigious their institution, the lower their rank; for men there was no such relationship” (Valian 1998). Contrary to the national trend dynamic, women in the South are making the most progress at the most prestigious institutions. Perhaps there are a greater number of faculty positions within doctoral departments and that in the last 10 years these programs have had more opportunities to hire and promote women. Our survey suggests that there have been fewer tenure-track positions available for women within departments at smaller, bachelor's degree-granting institutions. While the number of female associate professors has increased within baccalaureate-granting programs, the number of female full professors has actually declined. However, the overall number of women faculty members at all ranks has increased in the majority of political science programs within the South.

Activities

Walter Broadnax, dean, School of Public Affairs, American University, has been elected vice president of the American Society of Public Administration. He will become president of ASPA in 2003.

John J. Kennedy

When Jack Kennedy died on January 28 in Mexico City, the academic community lost one of its most respected authorities in the field of Latin American studies. He spent the major part of his teaching career at the University of Notre Dame (1951–59 and 1964–80), where he founded and directed the Program of Latin American Studies, and he served as the Chairman of the Department of Government and International Studies. From 1959 to 1964 he taught at the University of Virginia, serving as Executive Officer of the Department of Government and Foreign Affairs.

This summer, APSA's Annual Meeting returns to San Francisco for the first time in five years. The Program Committee, led by Richard Sisson and Edward Mansfield of Ohio State University, has put together a challenging program of over 700 panels, roundtables, and poster sessions.

The following rules proposed by the Association's Rules Committee were approved by the Council at its April 21 meeting.