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News & Events

Evan McKenzie on WBEZ 848

UIC Political Science Professor Evan McKenzie will be on WBEZ's 848 morning program on Tuesday, July 29.  He will be talking about condo associations banning the mezuzah.  A mezuzah is affixed to the doorframe of Jewish homes to fulfill a biblical commandment.  Professor Mckenzie is one of the nation's foremost experts on condominium associations and the law.  Archive audio will be available on the WBEZ 848 website.

A Summer With Professor Doris Graber

To answer the question 'What do professors do when they aren't teaching their classes or advising their students?"

 Here's a rough sketch of recent Graber activities:
        (1) Write and present  papers -- at the Midwest Political Science Association meeting in April, at the American Association for Public Opinion Research meeting in New Orleans in May, at the International Society of Political Psychology meeting in Paris in July, and at the American Political Science Association meeting in Boston in September.
        (2) Write and present a key note address (at ISPP in Paris on "Politics Acceptance Zones: Crossing the Barricades") or participate in Roundtable discussions on agenda-setting (Austin, TX, September), or
        (3) Cross hands across the oceans by presenting a paper at a scholar summit in Shanghai in December, sponsored by Duke University and Shanghai Jiaotong University.
        (4) Then there are miscellaneous activities like chairing two awards committees -- one for the best political psychology book published in 2007 (Alexander George Award) and the other for the Rakove student paper award at UIC. serving as book review editor for Political Psychology, a year round job, and trying to finish an overdue manuscript for a new book.
        5) In the fun department, the leader is a study trip that starts out in July in South Korea, and then moves to North Korea in August and returns home just before the Olympics open in China -- with a sports television feast available to all right here in Chicago.

Frank Tachau Appointed

Professor Emertius Frank Tachau has been appointed Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C.  According to the M.E.I. website, the Institute is engaged in several educational missions:

"Our Department of Programs present programs with top regional experts and officials from the US and foreign governments. The George Camp Keiser Library has the largest English-language collection on the Middle East outside of the Library of Congress. We publish quarterly one of the most prestigious journals on the Middle East, The Middle East Journal. MEI's Department of Languages and Regional Studies offers courses in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Turkish and seminars highlighting the history, literature and culture of the Middle East."

Professor Tachau will write the occasional op-ed, field interview requests from the media, and present lectures from time to time.

Powers & Voznyak Win Department's Rakove Awards

Two UIC Political Science graduate students have won the department's 2008 Rakove Awards.  Matt Powers' paper is entitled "Post-Communism, Semi-Authoritarianism, and Civil Society: A Nuanced View".  Vitaliy Voznyak's paper is titled "Corruption in Ukraine: Explaining Variation Across Administrative Divisions".

The Rakove Award commemorates the memory of Professor Milton Rakove who served as a member of UIC's Political Science faculty from 1957-83.  His classic accounts of Chicago politics are still widely read in the department and beyond.


Altay Cengizer - Harvard Fellow / Turkish Ambassador delivers talk

On Tuesday, March 18th the Political Science Department hosted a talk by Ambassador Altay Cengizer titled "A Region in Flux: Changing Dynamics in Central Asia and Turkey's Role as a Regional Power".  Ambassador Cengizer was the Director General for Policy Planning, at the Turkish Ministry  of Foreign Affairs, before coming to Harvard as a Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for Forgeign Affairs.  Throughout 2006 he was the Special Advisor to then Foreign Minister, now President Abdullah Gul.  Mr. Cengizer is a graduate of the Bosphorus University and has a M.A. degree in International History from LSE and a Preventive Diplomacy and Crisis Management certificate from Columbia University.

Politics 2008 Forum

On Saturday, February 16, 2008 UIC Political Science alumni, students, faculty, and friends came together for our annual Politics Forum.  Civil Liberties, Immigration, and Election Analysis were keynote topics.  To see the program, click here.

Professor Evan McKenzie Studies
Chinese Homeowner Associations With USC Group

In June 2007, USC’s Civic Engagement Initiative utilized funding from the USC U.S.-China Institute to co-sponsor an international conference in Beijing looking at the legal, political, social, and economic implications of China’s burgeoning homeowner association (HOA) movement and comparing it to similar trends in other national contexts.  UIC's Evan McKenzie, a nationally known authority on Homeowners' Associations in the U.S. attended this conference.
 

Emeritus Faculty member, Dr. Twiley Barker returns to campus 10/30/07

Dr. Twiley Barker, renowned Professor of Civil Liberties and Constitutional Law, returned to the UIC campus for a luncheon and visit in the Department of Political Science. Dr. Barker began his teaching career at Southern University in Louisiana then came to Chicago and became one of the founding faculty members of the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at (then) Chicago Circle campus. His teaching career spanned from 1955-1994, when he retired from UIC. The luncheon was joined by Former Senator and UIC alumnus, Carol Moseley Braun who was also one of Dr. Barker’s students. Dr. Barker will be returning to campus in February 2008 for a special lecture on the history of the U.S. Court System.
 

Mock Trial Teams Reunite

UIC Mock Trial Teams reunited on Thursday, September 20, 2007 to recount past glories and meet this year's team.  If you are a Mock Trial Alum and want to attend future events contact Stephanie Whitaker at 312-996-6853.  To see the event program click here.
 

UIC Hosts APSA Political Communications Pre-Conference

UIC again hosted the APSA Pre-Conference on Political Communications.  The department also hosted the event the last time APSA was in town in 2004.  Issues explored included new technologies in communication research including use of MRI data and Electronic Visualization.  To see the program and event photos, click here.

UIC Hosts IPSA / ISA Conference

The Illinois Political Science Association and the Illinois Sociological Associations held their annual conference together at UIC on October 26th and 27th. Benjamin Page, a political scientist  from Northwestern, gave a keynote address on "The Foreign Policy Disconnect" on Friday. Mario Small, a sociologist from the University of Chicago's Sociology Department spoke on "Is Chicago Still an Ideal Urban Laboratory: Outliers and Representative Cities," on Saturday. Twenty four Illinois colleges and universities (and six from out of state) were represented on sixteen conference panels. Professor Barry Rundquist was the political science coordinator for the conference and was elected President of the Illinois Political Science Association for the coming year.  To see the full agenda click here.

APSA & Political Communication Pre-Conference

Eleven Pols faculty and graduate students delivered papers at the APSA in Chicago, August 30 - September 2, 2007.  Professors Steve Engelmann and Brandon Valeriano served as panel discussants.  Our Political Communication Communication Pre-Conference opening remarks where delivered by Professor Doris Graber and Gadi Wolfsfeld from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and closing remarks by Professor Kevin Barnhurst.  Twelve presentations, tours of UIC's Electronic Visualization Lab and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) labs made for a fast paced afternoon.  The following UIC Political Scientists gave papers at the ASPA Conference:

Seung-Whan Choi, Veto Players, Democracy, and Militarized Interstate Disputes
John French, Making Society Work: Civil Society and Idenity in Weak States
Doris Graber, Wartime Torture Coverage: Problems and Solutions
Yoram Haftel, Action Speaks Louder than Words: Variation in Regional
  Integration Arrangements and Violent Conflict
Greg Holyk, Follow the Leader? Explaining the General Public-Leader Divide in
  Support for Multilateralism
Evan McKenzie, Private Cities, Parallel State, or Just More Government? An
  Assessment of Recent Developments in the Relationship Between Public and
  Private Local Government
Norma Moruzzi, Mutual Lessons of Destruction: Imperialism in Hannah Arendt's
  The Origins of Totalitarianism
Elizabeth O'Shaughnessy, Laboratories of Deliberation? State Bipartisanship in
  Dealing with Congress
Brandon Valeriano, Becoming Enduring Internal Rivalries in Africa: Territoriality and Warlord Politics

Ching-Jyuhn Luor, Ph.D Class of 1995 Visits UIC

Ching-Jyuhn Luor a.k.a. "Andy Luor" made a summer trip to visit his alma mater and catch up with his former professors.  Luor, now an Associate Professor at National Taipei University in Taiwan was accompanied by his wife Shu-Fen and son Austin.  Shu-Fen also has a UIC Ph.D. in Sociology.  They are pictured with UIC's Professor Barry Rundquist.

Graber Wins Nevitt Sanford Award

Professor Doris Graber has received the Nevitt Sanford Award for professional contributions to professional psychology.  This award is given yearly to someone deemed by the Lasswell/Sanford Committee to be 1. engaged in the practical application of political psychological principles, or 2. creating knowledge that is accessible and used by practitioners to make a positive difference in the way politics is carried out.  The award will be presented at the annual meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology on July 4-7, 2007 in Portland, Oregon.

Shannon Nelson Accepted to Summer Internship Program at NORC

Third year graduate student Shannon Nelson has been accepted to the 2007 Summer Internship Program at the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center.  NORC's 2007 Summer Internship Program is a 9-week, 40 hour per week paid position for upper level undergraduates and graduate students with an interest in social science research. Interns typically are assigned to an ongoing NORC research study, attend a seminar series on principles of survey research, and conduct a small scale study as an intern group project. The intent is to provide all interns with exposure to all facets of the survey process.  Shannon is also the first Political Science student to complete the new UIC Survey Research Concentration.

"Urban and Suburban Landscapes in a Changing Global Society."
Illinois Political Science Association and Illinois Sociological Association
Fall 2007 Joint Annual Conference
University of Illinois at Chicago
October 26-27, 2007

This year's annual meetings of the state sociological and political science associations will be together at UIC in Chicago. The theme of the joint conference is "Urban and Suburban Landscapes in a Changing Global Society." In recent years it has become apparent that the urban/suburban dichotomy that once described metropolitan areas is becoming less appropriate. Demographic data now confirm that descriptions previously employed to define and distinguish urban and suburban communities are inaccurate. Past characterizations emphasized differences in social composition, political identity and economic function of cities and suburbs. Greater interdependence and similarities now exists between these previously isolated settings. Social problems which used to be exclusively attributed to urban communities have become key challenges facing suburban municipalities just as an increasing number of higher income people residing in central cities are challenging their governments. Housing, job retention, transportation, crime, pollution and other environmental concerns, education, and community and economic development have taken center stage in civic efforts across metropolitan areas.

What explains these changes in metropolitan areas? Are they primarily due to local social and political conditions? To what extent are metropolitan changes related to the changing global economy? The upcoming joint IPSA/ISA Conference on October 26-27, 2007 will bring Illinois political scientists and sociologists together to address these and other questions. Papers on other topics in both disciplines are welcome in addition to those for thematic panels. Panels appropriate for their presentation will be constructed once paper proposals are received.

Please submit presentation abstracts, panel proposals, and other suggestions to Professor Barry Rundquist (IPSA) or Professor Costas Spirou (ISA). As always, contributions in all academic areas of our professions are encouraged. The submission deadline is September 1, 2007.

Flurry of Spring Conferences

UIC Politics 2007 Forum, March 10, 2007

UIC Urban Scholars Symposium, April 10-11, 2007

Midwest Political Science Association, April 12-15, 2007

UIC Richard J. Daley Urban Forum, May 2, 2007

Graber Receives NCA Distinguished Scholar Award

Professor Doris Graber has received the National Communication Association Award for lifetime of scholarly achievement.  Supported by the Mark L. Knapp Distinguished Scholar Fund, the award was established in 1991 and honors those who have made at least 20 years of showcase scholarly contributions to the profession.  Awardees design the Distinguished Scholars Program for the upcoming NCA Convention that will be held in November 15-18, 2007 in Chicago.

Graber Keynote Panelist At Portuguese Media Conference

Professor Doris Graber joined Professors Kees Brants of the University of Amsterdam and João Pissarra Esteves of the New University of Lisbson to open the Second International Seminar on Media, Journal, and Democracy in Lisbon, Portugal on November 13th and 14th.  The conference explored the media's role in elections, party congresses, the final years of a governing coalition, and on public opinion. Graber kicked off the discussion with an overview of the challenges facing political communication scholars who are just beginning to explore new thematic areas, like blog messages and the unexpected payoffs of soft news and entertainment for learning about politics. She also surveyed the newest research tools for content analysis, interview production, and psycho-physiological scanning. Kees Brants followed with a critical look at the charge that political journalists are prophets of gloom and doom who make politics seem like a cesspool from which citizens recoil. He concluded that the charges are vastly overdrawn, especially as concerns European journalism. The English language portion of the session ended with João Pissarra Esteves'  very favorable comments in Portuguese about the thrust  of the opening papers.

Karklins Presents Book In Kazakhstan

Professor Rasma Karklins participated in two panel discussions of her latest book, The Systems Made Me Do It: Corruption in Post-Soviet Societies and the issues surround corruption. The first session was held at the Ankara Hotel in the capitol city of Almaty on August 22nd.  The second session was held on August 24th at the Hotel Intercontinental in Astana. Photos and details about both events can be seen on the U.S. Embassy's website.
 

Graber Explores TV & Civic I.Q.s, Emotions and Political Behavior,
and Attention Thresholds

Professor Doris Graber was granted a sabbatical leave for the Spring 2006 semester to test various new approaches for doing experimental research in the field, rather than the laboratory. The initial results were presented at the 2006 Midwest Political Science Association meeting in a paper  -- "Experiencing Politics through Entertainment: Evidence from Experiments" -- produced with graduate students Kevin Navratil and Gregory Holyk. Another report about the findings -- "How Television Dramas Raise Citizens' Civic IQ" -- will be presented at the 2006 meeting of the American Political Science Association.

During  her sabbatical, Graber presented multiple lectures about her studies of the impact of emotions on political behavior in the 'dream professors' program' at the University of Oklahoma and in Honours Seminars at  Leiden University in the Netherlands. A chapter reporting this research -- "The Road to Public Surveillance: Breeching Attention Thresholds" -- will be published in 2007 in a book titled The Affect Effect. Graber also wrote book chapters on the presidential communication and on public diplomacy for publication in various essay collections and contributed several lengthy articles to encyclopedias dealing with Political Communication. One of these was co-authored with graduate student Gregory Holyk. Graduate students Kevin Navratil and Jamie Smith assisted Graber in the research for the 5th edition of Media Power in Politics, which CQ Press published in July, 2006.  In October, she will deliver a key note address on "Media, Journalism and Democracy," at a conference in Portugal at the New University of Lisbon.


Balbus Wins Teaching Award

Professor Ike Balbus has received the 2006 UIC Award of Teaching Excellence.  This is one of the highest awards for teaching on campus.  Recently Professor Balbus has taught The Scope of Political Science, Possible Political Systems, Introduction to Marxism, the undergraduate seminar in Political Theory, and the graduate Theoretical Approaches to Political Theory.

Middle East Scholars Honors Tachau

A conference entitled  “Between Shifting and Resilient Forces: The Middle East in Comparative Perspective”  will be held in Sile, Turkey on August 6-8, 2006 to recognize and honor Professor Frank Tachau’s important contributions to Middle Eastern Studies.  Professor Tachau of University of Illinois at Chicago dedicated his career to promoting a more nuanced understanding of the Middle East. As Tachau approaches his 75th birthday, his productivity and enthusiasm are more vibrant than ever.

The conference will be hosted by Isik University and convene many distinguished scholars including a large group of friends, colleagues and students of Frank Tachau. The participants represent different academic disciplines, while they all explore important conventional issues such as the role of the state, political parties, the military, political elites and secularism as well as a wide range of issues ignored by  institution-centered paradigms (e.g. urban poverty, migration, child labor). A more detailed description of the program can be obtained from Professor Sultan Tepe.

Simpson On All Things Considered

UIC Political Science professor, Dick Simpson was interviewed on NPR's All Things Considered on June 16, 2006 regarding the status of Cook County Board Executive John Stroger.  Click here to listen to the story.

Chicago Photos

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