APSA Teaching and Learning Conference, should you go?

Wondering what this conference is all about?  It’s for anyone teaching political science, and that probably includes you.  If you want to work in academia, regardless of what type of school you end up working in you will be teaching.  How much you teach and how much time you invest in your teaching will depend on factors like tenure requirements but it also depends on your personal commitment.  And you might be wondering if it’s appropriate for graduate student.  I will say that there were several other PhD students at the conference, many like myself interested in supplementing any teacher training they got as graduate students.  And I did get a lot out of it, in that regard.

APSA’s President Henry Brady, Senator Bob Graham, and Rogers Smith spent time with us at the conference this weekend giving their views on the importance of teaching political science and the state of the field on campuses today.   You can choose to think of teaching as fundamental to what we do or you can treat it as precious time spent away from your research.  But if you don’t think it matters, think again.  Departments with fewer students get less funding, with few exceptions.  That was their message in a nutshell and one that I agree with.

How does it work?  For three days, you are a part of a small group of teachers discussing pedagogy, the role of political science in general education, and fun things like using technology in the classroom.  There are also tracks for graduate education for tenured faculty looking to improve graduate programs, internationalizing the curriculum, and simulations and role playing in the classroom.  You can present a paper or participate as a discussant (everyone is a discussant by default).  The tracks meet separately in a working group model and come up with major points/themes and recommendations for the field.  These are then published in PS the following summer.  I was in the core curriculum/ general education track this year.  Dr. Kohen was in the technology in the classroom track, I believe.

My own experience this weekend was positive.  It was a chance to talk to others across the country about what it is political scientists do.  And why what we do is important.  It was also a good opportunity to find mentors and even research collaborators for the future.  Research projects were drummed up all over, it seemed.  And not all of them were about teaching.

The APSA Teaching and Learning Conference has been around for 7 years, it’s still young.  But it serves an important role in getting political scientists from all over together to talk about teaching.  No where else is this done. It’s expensive, sure ($250 registration this year).  It’s a growing conference and has yet to break even, thus the higher cost (or so I was told).  APSA will continue to support it so long as it continues to attract people interested in teaching.  So if this is you, plan to attend next year or the year after.  It’s 3 days out of the year, 5 at most with travel if you’re a discussant.  Unfortunately, our department only partially funds graduate student conferences for paper presentations, not for serving as a discussant.  So if you have an idea for a research project involving teaching, then submit a proposal.

If you have any questions or want more information, check out the conference area on APSA’s website or ask me.   And no, this is not a paid advertisement!

Trouble brewing in Europe

For those interested in international economic issues, Baseline Scenario, the blog run by James Kwak and Simon Johnson, is one of the best sources of information out there.  In this post, Johnson describes the pickle the EU finds itself in now that several member states are having severe problems in maintaining their current debt structure.

I think in political science we tend to be so interested in issues like human rights and immigration that we forget the EU is primarily an economic organization.  As Johnson describes, the economics of the EU are not working right now, and this could have major implications for Europe, and by extension for the world.

Now THIS is negative advertising

Wow.  Just, wow.

The U.S. Senate’s “Blanket Hold”

News today that Richard Shelby, Republican from Alabama, has placed a “blanket hold” on all Obama Administration nominees, until a defense contract is renegotiated to favor Northrop Grumman, a company with ties to Alabama.  What this means is that the Senate can not proceed on confirming anybody nominated for any executive branch position until Shelby gets his way.  This includes attempts to fill vacant positions in the Defense Department, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security.

This is the first time a Senator has tried a blanket hold (meaning its a hold on all nominees) since Larry Craig (R, Idaho) did it in 2003 to try to get more airplanes for Idaho’s National Guard.  He backed down when it became public.

And this of course comes on top of Jon Kyl’s (R, Arizona) hold placed on six key posts in the Treasury Department.  The Obama Administration decided to delay the enforcement of Kyl’s “Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act” until June of this year, presumably because it thought there were more important things to worry about right now, like saving the economy.  Kyl decided to fight back by blocking the confirmation of nominees for the Treasury Department’s Under Secretary for International Affairs, the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, the Assistant Secretary for International Markets and Development, the Assistant Secretary for International Economics and Development, the Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets, and the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy.  These are key posts absolutely essential to the function of the Treasury Department, and the Obama Administration’s attempts to shore up the economy.  Kyl apparently has decided that online gambling is more important than trying to get the economy going again.

As a citizen, my first reaction of course is anger.  It sure looks like these guys don’t care very much about the wellbeing of the country.  As a political scientist, I wonder about this institution in the Senate that is the “hold.”  Why is it so effective?  It is a form of filibuster, where the Senator refuses to allow a vote on an issue, and thus the Senate drops the issue because it doesn’t have enough time to spend a full debate on any particular issue.

Why?  What else could the Senate possibly be doing that they don’t have time to legislate?  The filibuster is the same thing blocking health care reform, and if the Democrats in the Senate wanted to, they could force the Republicans to actually play out the filibuster, meaning they could force them to actually take the floor in debate and hold it until they finally had to go to the bathroom.  But the Democrats don’t do that, because “they don’t have time.”

Wouldn’t it seem that health care reform and the operations of the government are relatively important matters?

I genuinely don’t understand this, unless it is really a function of self-interested legislators who are only interested in maintaining their seats and don’t really care at all about governing.  If anyone wants to argue against that position, I think the burden of proof is theirs to carry.

Liberals and conservatives have different kinds of dreams

The sleeping kind of dreams.  See here.  Thought it might be interesting to the biopolitics folks.

This year’s defense budget is the biggest ever

In real dollars (meaning even after accounting for inflation).  See this article from Slate.  13% higher than the previous record, which occurred during the height of the Korean War.

Also interesting, the Army, Air Force and Navy each received one third of the budget requests, just as they have every year since WW2, despite the fact that it is highly unlikely that U.S. defense priorities are actually divided that way.  Speaks to the power of bureaucratic in-fighting.

World’s greatest fellowship

The National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.  But it’s only open to first-years.  So for those of you in your first year of graduate study, this might be worth checking out.

Quadrennial Defense Review

The new Quadrennial Defense Review came out today.  You can find it here.

New thinking on the length of congressional bills

You probably are all aware that yesterday President Obama engaged in a lengthy televised discussion with Congressional Republicans on a whole host of issues.  It was a novel, and I’d guess positive, development in the way executive-legislative relations work in this administration.  Afterwords, House GOP leader John Boehner made some interesting remarks about how they found some common ground on some issues, which seems like a remarkable statement these days.  Then he said something that I found very interesting:

“We’re not always going to agree, but I think it did become clear in the conversation today with the president that there are issues and items that we do agree upon,” said Mr. Boehner. “But when they’re lumped together in 2,000-page bills and 1,000-page bills, typically what we find is a lot of things in the bills that we disagree with.

“And so if we can break these down into smaller bites, smaller bills, we will be able to find that more common ground, and find ways to work together.”

This stuck out to me because it’s something I’ve been thinking about for awhile – why are congressional bills so long?  Some probably have to be that way because of the complexity of the issue, but some of these would seem to be dictated by 1) pork, or 2) bad time-management, resulting in omnibus bills.  My inclination is to say Boehner hit on something important and useful here.

I’m wondering if an Americanist can summarize the thinking on bill length/complexity for me…?

How to report the news

Hilarious video here.  Some language may be a bit strong…