Political Science Educator: volume 28, issue 2
Dear Colleagues,
A belated happy New Year to all, and it was wonderful to see so many of you recently at the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference in Alexandria, VA.
A huge thank you again to all those who made TLC 2025 such an outstanding success: Michelle Allendoerfer, APSA’s Senior Director for Teaching & Learning, and Professional Development Programs; Bennett Grubbs, Associate Director, Teaching & Professional Development Programs, and Editor, APSA Educate; this year’s TLC program co-chairs, Terry Gilmour and Stephen Meinhold; the entire TLC program committee—Natasha Duncan, Josh Franco, John Ishiyama, and A. Lanethea Mathews-Schultz; all the APSA staff who attended and supported the conference, as well as the talented and dedicated track moderators for this year’s conference—thank you, all!
This year’s conference theme, “Teaching Political Science Matters,” was designed to advance the recommendations from John Ishiyama’s APSA Presidential Task Force, Rethinking Political Science Education. Following multiple pre-conference short courses, Michelle Deardorff’s keynote address, “Finding Joy in Teaching during Dark Times,” provided an inspirational launch to the conference, reminding us all why we teach and of its importance, perhaps especially now, as we find ourselves navigating considerable political uncertainty, as well as a growing number of challenges in our classrooms.
To support us in addressing these challenges, there were seven workshop tracks this year: (1) 21st Century Skills: AI, Literacy, Research and Writing; (2) Career Preparation in the Political Science Curriculum; (3) Civic Engagement and Democratic Values; (4) Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Justice, and Accessibility; (5) High Impact Practices; (6) Internationalizing and De-colonizing the Political Science Curriculum; and (7) Simulations, Games, and Active Learning. Please be on the lookout for track summaries, which will be published in PS this spring.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank this year’s PSE Executive Committee: Cherie Strachan (Vice President/Secretary), Tavishi Bhasin (Treasurer), Megan Becker, Jyl Josephson, Young-Im Lee, Diana Owen, and Charley Turner. They’ve been an exceptionally active and engaged committee, and since the Annual Meeting in September, we’ve focused on advancing two main initiatives:
The first initiative was an all-members survey that solicited interest in committee and leadership positions both in the Section and APSA-wide, as well as input on Section programming and resources. We received 114 responses from 488 members (an impressive 23% response rate), and we’d like to sincerely thank all of you who were able to participate. This feedback has been invaluable to us as we make plans for the remainder of the academic year, and we’ll be reaching out to many of you through the spring regarding committee and leadership positions for next academic year, based on your survey responses. If you missed filling out the survey but would like to become more involved in the Section, please also feel free to reach out to me directly: mfeeley@ucsd.edu.
There are many Section members to thank for bringing this survey to fruition. Cherie Strachan and Alison McCartney developed the initial survey, which was then further developed through last summer and fall 2024 by Tavishi Bhasin and Laura Roost (co-chairs of the 2024 PSE Diversity Subcommittee). Members of this year’s PSE Executive Committee additionally provided insightful feedback over multiple survey drafts. We would also like to especially thank Diana Owen for translating the initial survey draft into SurveyMonkey, and Ana Diaz, Research Manager at APSA, for translating the final survey into Qualtrics, as well as running it with reminders and tabulating results for us. Thank you, all!
The second initiative is an exciting professional development opportunity where political science graduate students and faculty can earn up to three levels of certification in research-based pedagogy on select topics through a series of asynchronous, synchronous, and in-person modules and workshop opportunities.
You can learn more about the Political Science Pedagogy Certification Initiative here.
You can learn more about the Call for Pedagogy Fellows here.
Here’s a general timeline for the initiative:
- April 5, 2025: Pedagogy Fellow Applications Due
- June 1, 2025: PSE Executive Committee Announces Pedagogy Fellows
- February 2026: Asynchronous courses available for enrollment
- APSA Annual Meetings: 2026, 2027, 2028: In-person or synchronous virtual short courses available for enrollment
The Pedagogy Certification Initiative is being led by Cherie Strachan, together with the support of Terry Gilmour (former PSE Section President), Michelle Allendoerfer (APSA’s Senior Director for Teaching & Learning, and Professional Development Programs), and Bennett Grubbs (APSA’s Associate Director, Teaching & Professional Development Programs, and Editor, APSA Educate). Thanks so much to each of you for your leadership and hours on this important initiative for the Section, the discipline, and beyond.
Finally, please mark your calendars for the 2025 Annual Meeting (September 11–14) and TLC at APSA (Saturday, September 13), which will be held in beautiful Vancouver, BC. This year’s theme is: “Reimagining Politics, Power, and Peoplehood in Crisis Times.” We’ll keep you posted with details as they become available.
In the meantime, wishing everyone a productive and rewarding winter quarter/spring semester!
With all best wishes,
Maureen
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Maureen Feeley is a Teaching Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Political Science Department at UC San Diego. She has teaching and research interests in the areas of human rights, politics of development, gender and globalization, electoral systems and minority representation, comparative public policy, and undergraduate teaching and learning. She currently serves on UCSD’s Council on Undergraduate Education and the Senior Council for UCSD’s Teaching and Learning Commons. She also serves on the steering committees for UCSD’s International Institute, UCSD’s Center for Advancing Multidisciplinary Scholarship for Excellence in Education (CAMSEE), and UCSD’s Human Rights and Migration minor.
Published since 2005, The Political Science Educator is the newsletter of the Political Science Education Section of the American Political Science Association. As part of APSA’s mission to support political science education across the discipline, APSA Educate has republished The Political Science Educator since 2021. Please visit APSA Educate’s Political Science Educator digital collection here.
Editors: Colin Brown (Northeastern University), Matt Evans (Northwest Arkansas Community College)
Submissions: editor.PSE.newsletter@gmail.com
