Professor Clark shares his thoughts on the after-math of the Brexit vote in a blog-post for The Washington Post. Read the full article.
Matthew Fuhrmann Featured in APSA
Winner of a Carnegie Fellowship, associate professor of political science Matthew Fuhrmann was featured in PSNow by the American Political Science Association. You can read the entire Q&A online.
Recent Grads Win EPSA 2016 Award
The Department of Political Science congratulates recent PhD program graduates Blake E. Garcia and Cameron Wimpy for winning the European Political Science Association’s 2016 award for the best published paper. Their paper, titled “Does Information Lead to Emulation? Spatial Dependence in Anti-Government Violence” was published in the January 2016 issue of the journal Political Science Research and Methods. Garcia and Wimpy wrote this paper together while they were PhD students and presented it a conference hosted by the Department and the European Union Center in 2013 on “Spatial Models of Politics in Europe and Beyond.”
Charles W. “Chuck” Wiggins
It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing on May 16 of our friend and colleague, Professor Emeritus Charles W. “Chuck” Wiggins. Chuck is known throughout the discipline as a well-published scholar of legislative politics and interest groups. He is remembered in this department as a good and caring teacher and a valued colleague and friend.
Having received his bachelor’s degree in Political Science in 1959 from the University of Iowa, Chuck went on to get his Master’s degree in 1963 and his doctoral degree in 1964 from Washington University in St. Louis. He then taught at Iowa State University from 1964 to 1981, where he ascended through the ranks from assistant professor to associate and then full professor, the rank he achieved in 1973. From 1979 through 1981, while still a professor at Iowa State, he entered into government service as Intergovernmental Relations Specialist with the EPA in Kansas City. And then, in 1981, he came to our department to head up our Master of Public Administration program, serving as director of that program for eight years. During that stint and for a decade more, Chuck taught Aggies at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. He retired in 1999, and since then has held the title of Professor Emeritus of Political Science.
Throughout his academic career, Chuck was an active researcher, with primary interests in legislative politics and interest group politics. In addition to three book-length projects – two on legislative politics in Iowa and another on legislative politics in Arizona – and eight research reports, Chuck also published 12 book chapters and 23 journal articles, including several in top journals of the field.
But as much as Chuck was a serious scholar, he would undoubtedly say that he was – first and foremost –a teacher of politics. Always dedicated to making his courses interesting and relevant for his students, Chuck skillfully merged teaching with another of his passions – movies, even developing an honors section of Political Science 207: State and Local Politics, based in discussion of the political relevance of selected movies. And he loved to engage his students in discussion – often challenging them to think outside of their own little boxes to gain different perspectives – not necessarily to adopt them, but at least to consider them.
But he was not just an interesting teacher, he was also an interested teacher. And not just interested in the subject matter, but also interested in each and every individual student! Chuck cared about his students, and was interested in their lives outside the classroom as well as in. The students knew he cared about them, and they appreciated it.
Chuck will be missed by his many friends in this department.
Fuhrmann Named Carnegie Fellow
The Carnegie Corporation of New York announced today that Professor Matthew Fuhrmann is among the 2016 Carnegie Fellows. The Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program provides the most prestigious and most generous fellowships advancing research in the social sciences and humanities. The program supports an outstanding cadre of intellectuals whose research offers fresh perspectives on urgent, contemporary issues.
Nominees are carefully reviewed by a distinguished jury comprised of heads of the country’s preeminent scholarly institutions and presidents of leading universities and philanthropic foundations, who make the final selections, based on the originality, promise, and potential impact of their proposals. Each will receive up to $200,000 toward the funding of one to two years of scholarly research and writing aimed at addressing some of the world’s most urgent challenges to U.S. democracy and international order.
Professor Fuhrmann, (Ph.D. 2008, University of Georgia) is an associate professor and Ray A. Rothrock ’77 Fellow at Texas A&M where he is Director of Graduate Studies and co-director of the Political Economy and Political Violence Workshop. He is a prominent International Relations scholar with an expertise in nuclear proliferation and nuclear strategy. He is the author of Atomic Assistance: How “Atoms for Peace” Programs Cause Nuclear Insecurity. His new book with Todd Sechser, entitled Nuclear Weapons and Coercive Diplomacy, will be published by Cambridge University Press this summer.
Nick Conway Receives Two Graduate Student Awards
The Fasken Graduate Student Teaching Awards Committee and Professor Chester Dunning, holder of the Murray & Celeste Fasken Chair in Distinguished Teaching in Liberal Arts, recently announced the awardees of the 2016 Fasken Distinguished Student Teaching Awards. Graduate student Nick Conway was honored as one of the recipients. Additionally, Nick has also been awarded a Distinguished Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Teaching by the Association of Former Students. Nominations for this university-wide award are submitted by faculty advisors or departments, and reviewed by a panel of faculty and administrators across the campus. These awards speak to the very impressive contributions Nick has made to our department’s teaching mission.
Please join us in congratulating Nick on his accomplishments!
Congratulations to Carla Flink
Carla Flink, currently at the University of Texas, San Antonio, has just accepted a tenure track position as an assistant professor at American University, in Washington, D. C. We congratulate Carla, who received her Ph.D. in 2014 from Texas A&M University. Her fields of interest are public administration, public policy, public budgeting, and methodology. Congratulations Carla!
Hyeran Jo wins Chadwick Alger award for “Compliant Rebels”
Assistant Professor Hyeran Jo’s book, Compliant Rebels: Rebel Groups and International Law in World Politics, has won the International Studies Association, International Organization Section’s Chadwick Alger award for best book on inter
national organization.
About Hyeran Jo:
Hyeran Jo studies international institutions, international law, and international political economy. Her research deals with the working of international organizations, the design of international rules and agreements, and the question of compliance with international law by non-state actors. She teaches courses in international relations and research design.
About the Chadwick Alger Prize:
The Chadwick F. Alger Prize recognizes the best book published in the previous calendar year on the subject of international organization and multilateralism. The Prize is awarded annually by the International Organization Section of the International Studies Association. The Award Committee is particularly interested in works dealing with the United Nations and/or with how international organizations interact with nongovernmental organizations and other local civil society actors, as reflected in the writings of Chadwick F. Alger.
More information: http://www.isanet.org/Programs/Awards/Chadwick-Alger
Soren Jordan Joins the Auburn Tigers
Soren Jordan, who earned his Ph.D. in this Department in August 2015, is enjoying an appointment as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Department in the 2015-2016 academic year. In this position he is doing independent research on U.S. Congressional politics, elections, party polarization, and representation. He is also engaged in collaborative research with Professors Kim Hill and Patricia Hurley, and he is teaching an undergraduate course in the Spring, 2016 semester. In the Fall, 2016 semester Dr. Jordan will begin an appointment as a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Auburn University.
Diego von Vacano Named Editor
Prof. Diego von Vacano has been named Editor of the Oxford University Press book series “Studies in Comparative Political Theory.” The series will publish books by political scientists on non-Western political thought, with special emphasis on Latin American, Islamic, and East Asian traditions.