This article revisits a debate between Jurg Steiner and Paul Johnson (Johnson 1990; Steiner 1990) over the civic implications of teaching rational choice that appeared in PS a little over 15 years ago. That debate summarized key contemporary arguments about the possible civic implications of teaching rational choice that likely still reverberate in department and conference discussions today. Despite numerous books, articles, and conference sessions on the perils and pluses of rational choice in scholarship, very few empirical studies examine the civic consequences of learning rational choice in undergraduate political science courses. This article reports the results of a study that attempts to do just that; to measure rational choice influences on students' civic attitudes.

Pressure to assess student learning more carefully and systematically is clearly mounting. Federal and state agencies are increasingly calling for solid, compelling evidence of student learning, while higher education leaders are challenging faculty to improve the quality of curricula and pedagogies. Efforts to assess student learning thus serve two ends: one, to demonstrate the worth of our programs to external constituents and, two, to inform our understanding of the effectiveness of our teaching strategies.

Washington Insider.

Washington Insider.

Here's a preview of some of the articles that will be published in the October issue of PS: Political Science and Politics.

The Committee on the Status of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and the Transgendered [LGBT] in the Profession has authorized this review of 17 recent editions of top-selling textbooks marketed for use in courses providing an introduction to U.S. politics.

The relationship between scholars and practitioners is a continuing source of concern to both communities. Each side complains about the insularity of the other and routinely points to gaps that separate them. Alexander George and other scholars found weak interest and lackluster capacity on the part of academy-based social scientists to contribute knowledge deemed useful to the policy community (George 1993; Nincic and Lepgold 2000). For their part, leading policy practitioners have bitterly complained about what they see as the growing irrelevance of scholarly work to the design and conduct of statecraft (Newsom 1995–1996).

Nominations for 2008 APSA Dissertation, Book, and Career Awards are now being accepted.

The American Political Science Association is pleased to announce the class for the 2007 Ralph Bunche Summer Institute. The Institute is in its 21st year of operation and will be hosted by Duke University. Twenty outstanding students, representing diverse institutions all over the country, will be participating in this summer's program.

Here's a preview of some of the articles that will be published in the January issue of PS: Political Science and Politics.

Iris' written work has been very widely admired; she has obviously helped shape the field of democratic political theory; she has deeply influenced students. The discussion of this work will go on in books and articles until her ideas have been fully absorbed. Here I will say a little about my particular experience of her collegiality. I was Iris' junior colleague at Chicago for six years. I met Iris eight years ago this week, under a portico outside a large hotel like the one in which you are all gathered, not too long after I had first read Democracy and Difference and shortly before my first APSA paper presentation on, as it happened, deliberative democracy. I had no way of knowing then how directly and deeply she would affect my intellectual life. She was already for me a standard, even before I met her. But how that fact deepened over time is what I want to render here.

Since the early 1990s, North Americans have participated in a large political-economic experiment in a regional trade bloc called the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). With NAFTA now over 10 years old, the non-NAFTA countries have been debating the merits and shortcomings of creating an expanded version of the trade agreement that would encompass virtually every state in the Americas. The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) would encompass 34 western hemisphere countries, over 800 million consumers, and a total economy of over $12 trillion. The debate over the FTAA raises a long list of important practical questions for each of the potential member states and their citizens. The debate also raises a host of pedagogical questions for students of the entire region and beyond. This paper describes a student-based simulation that taps into those practical and pedagogical questions. As in other simulations, such as the Model United Nations, students role-play while vicariously experiencing the opportunities and constraints facing each country as they negotiate for policy preferences.

People in Political Science.

News and notes.

The increasing recognition of a global interdependence among our economies and societies places a significant amount of pressure on educational institutions to prepare future citizens for successful participation in this “new world order.” While there might be general agreement that globalization or internationalization is a “major trend in education” or a “worldwide phenomenon,” there are barriers to internationalization, some of which can be individual—resulting from faculty and student attitudes; some institutional—caused by long-standing policies, practices, and traditions; and some reflecting the attitudes and culture of the wider American society (Green 2003, 11). There are different ways that institutions of higher learning can respond to this phenomenon most effectively, including, for example, changes at the curricular level, broad institutional policies that involve recruitment of foreign students, experiential partnerships with foreign institutions of higher learning, and the creation of campuses in other countries (see Altbach 2002).

Announcing the Nelson W. Polsby Memorial Fund.

NEH Summer Stipend Awards.

The APSA Nominating Committee welcomes your suggestions for candidates for 2008 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.

Ten days after graduation for the Class of 2006, I'm at the Abbey of Gethsemani, a Trappist monastery about 50 miles southeast of Louisville, Kentucky. I come here every year at this time for three or four days, usually in the company of one or two of my colleagues at Rhodes College. The Abbey is a place of extraordinary serenity and beauty, both the buildings and, especially, the grounds. In secular terms, I'm here to decompress from the academic year and recharge my batteries for the summer. But I am a Christian as well as an academic, so I'm also here in hopes of stepping briefly outside linear time and into sacred time, where every day recapitulates the monks' centuries-old cycle of prayer, song, study, and work.This article is the second of a four-part series.

Arch T. Dotson, professor emeritus of government at Cornell University, died April 6, 2006, at the age of 85. He had been sound of mind and body virtually until the end, teaching until his voice was too weak to be heard. A “country boy” born and bred in Paris, Kentucky, he worked from his early teens on farms managed by his father. Arch left for World War II just short of earning his B.A. from Transylvania College and joined the Army Air Force as a “check pilot,” becoming a jock in every war plane up to the B-29. Discharged with the rank of major, the GI Bill got him through his Harvard Ph.D. and a post-doc at the London School of Economics. His entire academic career was at Cornell, beginning in 1950, as a dedicated teacher, serving beyond his retirement as a teacher, and, respectively, as director of Cornell-in-Washington, director of Cornell Abroad, and director of the Cornell Institute of Public Affairs.

APSA is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2007 Small Research Grant Program. This year, awards averaging $1,636 went to 11 proposals. The Small Research Grant Program supports research in all fields of political science, designed to support the research of political scientists who are not employed at Ph.D.-granting institutions. For more information on the program and application procedures, please visit the APSA web site at www.apsanet.org/section_509.cfm. The 2008 Small Research Grant competition cycle reopens December 1, 2007.