Organized Section information is usually published in the January issue of PS, relying on information gleaned from Organized Section activities at the APSA Annual Meeting. However, because of the cancellation of the 2012 APSA Annual Meeting, a complete list was not available to meet the publication deadline for the January 2013 issue of PS; therefore this information is included in this issue. Be sure to check the sections' websites, or the APSA website (www.apsanet.org/sections) for more details or updates on each APSA Organized Section.

Serving as an APSA Congressional Fellow had been a goal of mine since I started graduate school. The fellowship provided an opportunity to examine the congressional policy-making process first hand. And while I had worked on congressional campaigns, in state legislative offices, and supervised student internships, I had no direct experience working on Capitol Hill for Congress. In addition, the program was highly recommended by senior colleagues who had served as fellows themselves. Nearly all of them had worked on the staffs of individual congressional members and found the experience served to better inform both their research and teaching. When I found out I would be serving as a fellow for the 2012–13 academic year, my plan was to spend that year in a congressional member office as well.

Although APSA president Jane Mansbridge and president elect John D. Aldrich assumed their roles 1 September 2012, per the APSA Constitution, the following council members and officers were approved at the APSA Council Meeting held in Washington, DC, October 6, 2012. APSA welcomes the new council members and other officers to APSA leadership.

This year APSA celebrates the first decade of publication of Perspectives on Politics. Added to the APSA journal portfolio in 2003, Perspectives has developed into an important publication for the discipline under the stewardship of its first three editors Jennifer Hochschild, Jim Johnson, and current editor Jeffrey C. Isaac and their respective editorial boards.

APSA is pleased to include here the names of individuals who have completed their doctoral dissertations at political science departments in the United States in 2012. The list is based on data collected in the APSA member database and includes information reported by both individuals and departments. Dissertations are listed by fields of interest as labeled by APSA, American politics, comparative politics, international relations, methodology, public administration, political philosophy and theory, public lawand courts, and public policy. (See also, table 1.)

From July 1 to 12, 2013, approximately 30 scholars from across Africa and the United States will gather at the Institute for Governance and Development in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, for this year's Africa Workshop, titled “Religion and Politics in Comparative Perspective.” Now going into its sixth annual iteration, the APSA Africa Workshop program is an academic conference series funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support political science research and teaching in Sub-Saharan Africa. It also forms a major component of APSA's efforts to support research networks linking US scholars with their colleagues overseas and engage political science communities outside the United States. Previous workshops have been held in Gaborone, Botswana (2012); Nairobi, Kenya (2011); Dares Salaam, Tanzania (2010); Accra, Ghana (2009); and Dakar, Senegal (2008).

The Goodnow Award and career awards are bestowed for significant achievements related to political science. The following awards will be awarded in 2013. Due date for the Goodnow Award nomination is March 15, 2013; other award nominations are due February 1, 2013.

APSA lists upcoming international meetings, conferences, and call for proposal on the APSA website: Visit www.apasanet.org/conferences for updates and new details or submit information.

A preview of some of the articles in the April 2013 issue.

An emergency meeting of the American Political Science Association Council was held in Washington, DC on October 6, 2012. The meeting was called to order at 8:30 a.m. by President Mansbridge.

It was May 2012, and we heard rumblings about a Senate vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill long-sponsored by my boss, Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), that would end pay secrecy, strengthen workers' ability to challenge discrimination, and bring equal pay law into line with other civil rights laws. As the lead sponsor in the House of Representatives, the congresswoman immediately mobilized her staff and advocates to ensure that we did all we could to highlight the importance of the legislation, secure the strongest Senate support possible, and—assuming it would not pass in the current political climate—protect the integrity of the legislation for future Congresses and eventual passage. That is where I came in.

As a result of generous contributions by Association members and friends to the Centennial Campaign, APSA created nine endowments to support a diverse range of grant programs to encourage individual research and writing in all fields of political science and to facilitate collaboration among scholars working within the discipline and across the social and behavioral sciences and humanities. More details on the Centennial Center, these endowments, and application requirements visit center@apsanet.org.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced a search to find a replacement for Myron Gutmann as the Assistant Director (AD) for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate (SBE). Gutmann expects to finish his four-year stint at the end of June 2013.

APSA recently announced a new series of annual political science workshops to be held in the Arab Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York for 2013–2014, the MENA Workshops are a multi-year collaboration with early-career political science faculty in the Arab Middle East and North Africa to enhance regional scholarly capacity and networks. The program will deepen APSA's engagement with the international political science community and strengthen efforts to support research networks linking US scholars with their colleagues overseas, building on APSA's successful Africa Workshop program.

Present: Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, Jeffrey Berry, Michael Brintnall, Michael Desch, Morris Fiorina, Christopher Gelpi, Paul Gronke, Kerstin Hamann, Ange-Marie Hancock, Simon Hix, Mala Htun, Jeffrey Isaac, Niraja Jayal, David Lake, Taeku Lee, Jane Mansbridge, Lisa Martin, Kenneth Meier, Anne Norton, Laura Olson, G. Bingham Powell, Jr., Ronald Rogowski, Dara Strolovitch, Kathleen Thelen, Lynn Vavreck, Stephen Walt, and Angelia Wilson