UIC Political Science News January 2004

Welcome Back to UIC! We hope this Political Science Department newsletter will keep us in better touch with our graduates. Below you will find news about our faculty, our programs and our students. We are planning a Politics 2004 Forum for Saturday February 21, 2004, bringing together many alumni and other experts to participate on panels about upcoming presidential elections, current issues in Illinois politics, the law, and world affairs. Please see the enclosed letter for full details.

From the head:

Let me tell you a bit about myself. I arrived here as Department Head in 2001 from the University of Arizona where I taught for over twenty years. But I’m a Midwesterner at heart with a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

UIC is an exciting place to be. The intellectual vigor, political interest, and energy of our UIC undergraduates far outshine students I have taught over the years at Arizona, Wisconsin, and Iowa. We currently have 330 majors (tied for fourth among all UIC departments in Liberal Arts and Sciences) and over 1400 students took our classes last year. I look forward to meeting some of our alums at our political forum in February!

Lyn Ragsdale, Department Head

Mock Trial Winners

Some of you may have participated in Mock Trial during your years here. This is a unique, completely student led experience in which students compete as a trial advocacy team with other schools from around the country. Last year, the UIC Mock Trial team won the Midwest regional tournament defeating such schools as Northwestern and the University of Chicago. In past national competitions, the team has defeated such universities as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, and Notre Dame. We are proud of the winning tradition of our mock trial team. Some of our recent team members have gone on to graduate from fine law schools and establish impressive legal careers. We have established a Mock Trial Fund for donations to help support the tournament trips the team makes.

Other undergrad activities

In addition to the Mock Trial team, our department supports a Model United Nations student group that sends a delegation to New York annually to participate in the National Model United Nations debates. Many students are active in our Political Science Club which sponsors events such as political forums and career days. Students also compete for cash prizes and tuition waivers awarded for best papers and academic excellence in political science.

These activities are supported in part by student fundraising, contributions from campus organizations and donations from our graduates.

INTERNSHIPS Since 1965, students have been checking out career possibilities (and seeing whether their professors have any idea what the REAL world is all about!) through the Political Science internship program. Sheila Shariari (UIC, 1997) was a White House Intern in 1997 and went on to a successful law career. Gery Chico (UIC, 1979) was an intern for the Chicago City Council in 1977 and is now running for the U.S. Senate.

Faculty in the News

Our faculty members continue to be active researchers and teachers. Doris Graber has recently been named University Scholar, a prestigious award honoring Professor Graber’s internationally known work on political communication. In addition, Professor Graber won Harvard University’s Goldsmith Award for her book Processing Politics:  Learning from Television in the Internet Age. Other faculty honors and awards include:

• Dick Simpson received the Carnegie Foundation Award for Teaching Innovation and the UIC Award for Excellence in Teaching

• Rasma Karklins spent last year at the prestigious Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton University

• Kevin Lyles was one of only two recipients of the 2003 Alumni Award for Teaching Excellence

• Evan McKenzie has been interviewed on the ABC News show 20/20 and by Sam Donaldson regarding his book on homeowners’ associations Privatopia

• Amalia Pallares was a Fulbright fellow to Ecuador

• Jerry Rusk, new to UIC, received two awards for his book A Statistical History of the American Electorate

• Sultan Tepe, also new to UIC, has received two major grants from the National Institutes for Peace and the Smith-Richardson Foundation for her work on religious parties in the Middle East.

• In addition to these faculty achievements, in the past two years Stephen Engelmann, Doris Graber, Dennis Judd, Andy McFarland, Amalia Pallares, Barry Rundquist, and Dick Simpson have written books on topics ranging from the Chicago city council to the defense budget.

Graduate Program Update

Our graduate program has been recently revised. We have replaced the Ph.D. in public policy analysis with a new

Ph.D. in political science. Students can major in urban politics, American politics, political theory, comparative politics and international relations. In addition we have:

• Established a fully-funded Political Science Fellowship that permits us to attract top incoming Ph.D. students.

• Promoted student research resulting in the winning of an NSF grant for dissertation research. And through a new graduate seminar, six students have had papers accepted for presentations at the Midwest Political Science Association 2004 annual meeting.

• Established a special concentration in survey research.

Stay in touch with the Department, bookmark our website at www.uic.edu/depts/pols . It is updated regularly with news and information about events, faculty publications, lectures, conferences, and class offerings.

We want to hear from you: send news about yourself to us via our website link or send a note to your favorite professor.