Jennifer Hochschild, professor of government and Afro-American studies at Harvard University, was unanimously and enthusiastically approved by the APSA Executive Council to serve as the inaugural editor of Perspectives on Politics. Hochschild will begin her three-year term on September 1, 2002.

As the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program enters its fiftieth year, it welcomes the 2002-2003 class of fellows, who will join more than 1900 alumni since 1953 in gaining a “hands-on” understanding of Congress. While the fellowship was first founded so that political scientists and journalists could transmit their legislative experiences to the classroom and to the public, it has since expanded to share the benefits of such study to other professional fields. These are represented by the Federal Executive and Foreign Affairs fellows, Robert Wood Johnson health policy fellows, Native American Hatfield fellows, Carl Albert fellows, American Sociological Association fellows, and by the international scholars sponsored by the Senior Fulbright Scholars program, the Asia Foundation, and the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Now half a century old, the Congressional Fellowship Program continues to benefit from the generosity of Congressional Quarterly, Inc., the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and MCI.

Howard University has been an active participant in the national PFF program since its inception in 1994. As the only historically black college or university (HBCU) within the national PFF community, it serves as the PFF coordinating institution for the Washington, DC, PFF cluster of institutions. These institutions include Bowie State University, The Catholic University of America, Marymount University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and Howard Community College, representing a very diverse and unique PFF community.

Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor Society, is pleased to announce these award winners for the 2001-2002 academic year. Winners of the Best Undergraduate Class Papers, Best Undergraduate Honors Theses, and Best Graduate Student Papers will be announced at a later date.

In recognition of their outstanding academic and personal achievements, APSA has named five fellows with stipends and four fellows without stipends for the 2002–2003 academic year.

The apprentice relationship graduate students share with faculty mentors is founded on dialogue and collaboration. Under this faculty tutelage, graduate students learn to perform teaching, research, and service inform a faculty career. The Socratic portfolio, introduced and described in this essay, provides a tool and a method to facilitate and document the faculty-graduate student apprenticeship. The Socratic portfolio process encourages graduate students and faculty to engage in a conversation about faculty roles and responsibilities, while addressing and developing graduate students' goals and objectives. The resulting inquiry-based portfolio is, at its heart, a response to the Socratic adage, “Know thyself.”

APSA invites applications to participate in an Annual Meeting workshop on syllabi incorporating service learning and to contribute to a collection of service learning syllabi. Selected applicants will receive $150 toward their expenses at the meeting on the day of the workshop.

The 2003 meetings mark the centenary of APSA. The century in which Political Science developed as an academic discipline witnessed major transformations in technology, warfare, the economy, and national and international forms of governance. The spread of democracy and the elaboration and defense of individual rights were at the forefront of political changes at the national and international levels. The 2003 theme considers the causes and the significance of these transformations, and it assesses the diverse ways that American political science has approached the study of democracy and justice over its hundred-year history. Among the topics we consider are: What conditions promote democratic reform? How has the understanding and practice of democracy changed over the course of the century? How do we define justice in the modern world? How are democracy and justice related? How do considerations of democracy and justice influence the process of democratic transition? In what ways are the concepts of democracy and justice meaningful at the international level? We especially welcome papers and panels that examine these questions through comparisons over time and across countries or that explore critical periods in the intellectual understandings and practice of democracy and justice.

External funding is a common indicator of research productivity in political science. Comparing departments, university administrators often use external funding as an indication of the quality of research. While this can simply reflect administrators' desire for departments to obtain grants that provide overhead for the institution, this metric also rests on an assumption that external funding is a measure of quality research.For example, Indiana University's web site posted a discussion with President Myles Brand on October 23, 2000, in which he stresses “the ability to win competitive grants” as a measure of department and university quality. Also, e.g., while she focuses on an earlier period, see Lewin's (1997) discussion of Stanford, especially its Political Science Department at pp. 213-23. Departments themselves often use external funding as a proxy for research productivity in evaluating faculty performance. Again, the justification is generally that quality research depends on funding and that those who secure competitive funding will publish quality research.

Scores of studies have measured the quality of political science departments. Generally speaking, these studies have taken two forms. Many have relied on scholars' survey responses to construct rankings of the major departments. For example, almost 50 years ago Keniston (1957) interviewed 25 department chairpersons and asked them to assess the quality of various programs, and, much more recently, the National Research Council (NRC 1995) asked 100 political scientists to rate the “scholarly quality of program faculty” in the nation's political science doctoral departments. In response to these opinion-based rankings, a number of researchers have developed what they claim to be more objective measures of department quality based on the research productivity of the faculty (Ballard and Mitchell 1998; Miller, Tien, and Peebler 1996; Robey 1979). While department rankings using these two methods are often similar, there are always noteworthy differences and these have generated an additional literature that explores the relationship between the rating systems (Garand and Graddy 1999; Jackman and Siverson 1996; Katz and Eagles 1996; Miller, Tien, and Peebler 1996).

The 2003 World Congress of the International Political Science Association will be held in Durban, South Africa, in June/July 2003. The overall theme for the congress is “Democracy, Tolerance, Justice: Challenges for Political Change.” The Congress promises to be one of the most intellectually stimulating and exciting meetings IPSA has ever hosted. The meeting is also historic since IPSA has never held a World Congress in Africa.

Comparative Politics

As of the Winter 2002–03 issue, the Comparative Politics Organized Section Newsletter, APSA-CP, will be produced by an editorial team at the University of Notre Dame, composed of Michael Coppedge, Scott Mainwaring, and Anthony Messina. After the Summer 2002 issue of APSA-CP, all submissions should be sent to the new editorial staff at coppedge.1@nd.edu. Submissions that arrive by October 2002 will be considered for the Winter 2003 issue.

Bipartisan Effort to Nullify Bush's Executive Order

On April 11, 2002, the leadership of the House Committee on Government Reform—including Stephen Horn (R-CA), Dan Burton (R-IN), Henry Waxman (D-CA), and Janice D. Schakowsky (D-IL)—introduced legislation seeking to nullify President Bush's Executive Order 13233 (“Further Implementation of the Presidential Records Act”). The bill, “The Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2002” www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2002/hr4187.html, states that E.O. 13233 “shall have no force or effect.”

Midwest Political Science Association

Annual Meeting

Friday, April 26, 2002

Chicago, Illinois

Present: Michael Brintnall, Richard Brody, Bruce J. Bueno de Mesquita, Nancy Burns, Susan Clarke, David Collier, Lawrence Dodd, John Garcia, Robert Holmes, Robert Kaufman, L. Sandy Maisel, Valerie Martinez-Ebers, Kirstie McClure, Kristen Monroe, Desiree Pedescleaux, Doris Marie Provine, Robert Putnam (president), Ronald Schmidt, Sr., James Scott, Mary Segers, Phil Shively, Lee Sigelman, Kathryn Sikkink, Theda Skocpol (president-elect), Katherine Tate, Margaret Weir.

Guests: Susan Carroll, Jennifer Hochschild, Gary Jacobson.

Not attending: John Jackson.

Staff: Jeff Biggs, Sue Davis, Mary DeYoung, Polly Karpowicz, Sheilah Mann.

Activities, Administrative Appointments, New Appointments, Promotions, Retirement, Awards

In the June 2002 issue, a “Concerned Professor” (CP) implored faculty to be more careful in asking sensitive questions of job candidates (“Open Letter to Political Science Faculty about What Not to Ask When Interviewing Job Candidates”). CP is right to be concerned about discriminatory interview questions, and, as CP notes, many interviewers ask questions that run afoul of anti-discrimination laws. Perhaps, CP charitably speculates, it is the increasing pressure on departments to make offers to candidates who are likely to actually take the job that has led to such personal questions about candidates' marital status, dating life and childbearing plans. Nevertheless, CP argues, these questions are inappropriate and must be left completely to the candidate to raise. If that runs the risk of losing a candidate, so be it.