Tulane Political Science

We welcome several new faculty members to the department for 2008-2009, including:

Professor Mark Vail was recently named a "Newcomb Favorite Faculty" member for 2008 (one of three professors chosen by students of Newcomb Tulane College for this honor. Congratulations to Professor Vail!

Political Sience majors Sarah Elizabeth Ray and Timothy Kramer Schmidt were two of only 65 students nationwide to have been selected as 2008 Truman Scholars.

The Truman Scholarship Foundation, which bestows this honor, was established by Congress in 1975 as a memorial to President Truman. The Foundation awards scholarships of up to $30,000 for college students to attend graduate school in preparation for careers in government or other public service. The rigorous selection process requires that candidates have a strong record of public service, as well as a policy proposal that addresses a particular issue in society.

Sarah is a double major in political science and social policy. Her career goal is to make government programs more accountable and efficient, especially in the area of public housing and poverty. Timothy is a political science major with a concentration in American politics and policy. He mentors at-risk youth through Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America. He also guts and rebuilds hurricane-damaged homes through Tulane SAFER (Students Acting for Equitable Recovery).
CONGRATULATIONS SARA AND TIM!

One Nationally Prominent Speaker, Two Public Appearances!

WHO: Samanta Power. Dr. Power was a longtime foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama, a founder of the "Save Darfur" human rights campaign, and the Pulitzer Prize-winner author of "Problem From Hell," a best-selling account of efforts to stop genocide around the world. Dr. Power is a frequent contributor to major periodicals, and a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University

WHEN: Monday, March 31, 4 PM & 5PM

WHERE: Architecture Building, Second Floor lecture hall (Room 201; just come up the large stairs outside; you can't miss it).

4 PM: Dr. Power will give an update on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan, and take questions from the audience.
5 PM: Dr. Power will give a talk on the major US Foreign Policy challenges to be faced by a new president.

There will be a RECEPTION (FREE FOOD! FREE FOOD! FREE FOOD!) following the lecture, during which time Dr. Power will sign copies of her new book, "Chasing the Flame," about the late Sergio Vieira de Mello, until his death in Iraq, one of the world's foremost experts on "nation building" in failed states.

Sponsored by: Your Department of Political Science, the Payson Center for International Development, the School of Liberal Arts' Center for Scholars, the Newcomb Institute for Research on Women, and Newcomb-Tulane College

The Mayoral Fellows Program offers post-baccalaureate students the opportunity to serve in New Orleans city government while helping to create a cadre of potential leaders for our community. It contributes to the administration’s overall goal of achieving and maintaining excellence in public sector leadership. Through a competitive application process, students are encouraged to present their brightest and most innovative ideas, then to apply their knowledge and skills in a real life setting. Click here for more information and an application.

The Tulane Political Science Department has a new group for our alumni on the social networking site www.facebook.com. Stay in contact with former classmates, meet other alumni, share expericences, and get up to date news about the department. Click Here.

Friday, 2/29/2008

Distinguished Young Alumni Roundtable Discussion: “Where Do I Go from Here?”

2-4 PM in Freeman Auditorium, Art Building

Ian Bremmer ’89 President and Founder, Eurasia Group
Mara Karlin, ’01 Mid East advisor, Pentagon
Clegg Ivey ’93 General Counsel & Co-founder, Voxeo Corporation >
Christine Martin ’95 Foreign Affairs Officer, State Department

Public Lecture: Global Political Risk: The United States and the World in 2008

7 PM in Cudd Hall

Dr. Ian Bremmer, ’89, President, Eurasia Group, with a reception to follow.

Thursday, 2/28/2008

Keynote Address : Hedge Funds and the Global Equity Revolution

5-7 PM in Cudd Hall

Mr. Michael Corasaniti ’87 Managing Director, Pequot Capital Management, with a reception to follow.

Wednesday, 2/27/2008

Future Lawyers of America: Inaugural Meeting, Alumni Reception, and Roundtable on Careers in the Law

5-7 PM in Cudd Hall

Susan Krinsky, Dean of Admissions, Tulane University School of Law
Randall Kleimnam ‘73, Law ’76, partner, Hulse & Wanek, New Orleans
Constantine Georges ’76, Law ’79, attorney, former assistant US Attorney
Hiroko Kusuda, managing attorney, Gulf Coast Immigration Project, New Orleans

Tuesday, 2/26/2008

Political Science Internship Workshop

12:30-1:30 PM in the Stibbs Room at the LBC

FREE FOOD

Christine Martin presently holds a position in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation at the Department of State.

Brooke Longon is currently in her second year of law school at The University of Texas at Austin.

These updates are now available for you to read in the "Where Do I Go From Here" section. Read more about their stories here.

Read an interview with recent Tulane University graduate Jerry Gabrielatos, Constituent Service Specialist for Chicago City Council Member Manny Flores. Also, preview our next feature in which we interview The Honorable Gene Taylor, United States House of Representatives. These updates are now available for you to read in the "Where Do I Go From Here" section. Read more about their stories here.

With funding from the Provost’s Fund for Faculty-Student Engagement:

Professor Dana Zartner Falstrom and students Patricia Neves and Jennifer Sheppard will be working on a research project examining the foreign policy debates which occurred in four states over whether or not the state should sign on to the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. We will be looking at two developed states (Australia and Germany) and two developing states (Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire). Specifically, we will be examining newspaper coverage and official government statements concerning the Kyoto Protocol to determine how each of these states viewed their obligations under international environmental law, and whether these perceived legal obligations had an influence on state policy towards the treaty. This work is part of a larger research project which considers the influence of domestic legal tradition on state attitudes towards international law.

Professor Mark Vail and Xingzhou Liu, a student in the Tulane Honors Program, will be working on revisions of Professor Vail’s book manuscript, Recasting Welfare Capitalism: The Political Dynamics of Economic Adjustment in Contemporary France and Germany. Xing is helping Professor Vail to organize and interpret interview data collected on a recent research trip to Europe, to analyze and organize other primary and secondary source materials, and to prepare the final version of the manuscript. Xing is also assisting with the preparation of the index, as well as with some of the preliminary research for Professor Vail’s second book project on liberalism and political representation in Europe.

Professor Ray Taras will put Christopher Oates to work helping to identify, locate and translate select documents and materials from the Russian. Also, Chris will help tabulate, interpret, and format data on xenophobic —especially russophobic— attitudes found in contemporary eastern Europe.

Interviews with Tulane University graduates Sandra Barnett and James Jeffers are now available for you to read in the "Where Do I Go From Here" section. Ms. Barnett is currently involved with Teach For America. Mr. Jeffers is living in Kazan, Russia, working at Kazan State University of Culture and Arts, and at School 39 (K-11), where he teaches English. Read more about their stories here.

POLC 302 Comparative Politics of the Middle East
A survey of the politics of the interaction of Middle Eastern states with their respective societies & with the regional & global orders. The course aims to shed light on the particularities of the politics of the Middle East as well as the general patterns of political phenomena the region shares with other countries of the developing & developed worlds.

POLC 401 Islam & the West
An analysis of the complex relationship between Islam & the West which lies at the heart of the current global conflict. Through an examination of selected aspects of local politics in both Muslim & Western countries, the course explores the domestic roots of the various episodes of conflict & contention between Islam & the West which have dominated the post-9/11 global stage.

Members of the class of 2007 are doing some remarkable things! Here’s a profile of just one of our recent graduates.

James Jeffers received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Fellowship to teach English in Kazan, Russia for the current academic year. The highly acclaimed Fulbright Program provides funds for students, scholars (such as several members of our own faculty), and professionals to undertake graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and teaching in elementary and secondary schools abroad. More Fulbright alumni have won Nobel prizes than graduates of any other academic program, totaling 36 prizes. James traveled first to Moscow, where he spent a month in training, and now lives in Kazan, where he teaches at a private secondary school, the Kazan State University of Culture and Arts School #39.

After his year as a Fulbright Fellow, James will attend the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University as a Thomas Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellow. The Pickering Fellowship is funded by the U.S. Department of State and administered by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The program seeks to recruit talented students from all ethnic, racial and social backgrounds who have an interest in pursuing a Foreign Service career in the U.S. Department of State. James’ fellowship will pay in full for tuition, room, board, travel, and books for his two years as a Master’s degree student. After graduation from graduate study, Pickering Fellows enter the Foreign Service, where they have an obligation of at least three years.

Would you like to share news about yourself or another member of the 2007 graduating class? If so, please contact Polisci@tulane.edu.

Congratulations to our graduates! The Department of Political Science is the most popular undergraduate major within the new School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University, and this was reflected at the Newcomb-Tulane College awards ceremony at the end of the past academic year. It was a pleasure to see so many familiar faces among the students as they progressed across the stage. In a separate ceremony, held the day before graduation, the department recognized a number of its outstanding graduates with special awards, including Evan Bieber, winner of the 2007 Senior Scholar Award.

Earlier in the year, the department’s most recent Ph.D. graduate, Ludovico Feoli, was “hooded” with the University’s colors. Dr. Feoli is the Director of the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research, with headquarters in Costa Rica, and a close affiliation with Tulane University’s Stone Center for Latin American Politics.

Professors Nancy Maveety (in China on a Fulbright Fellowship this year) and Tony Pereira (on leave at the University of East Anglia) have both been promoted to full professor. Congratulations!

As the result of a strong year in faculty recruitment, four new assistant professors will be joining the department in tenure-track positions soon:

In addition, Professor Casey Kane-Love is staying on in a new position, that of Professor of Practice. In this new position, Professor Love will supervise the department’s internship program, in association with the Center for Public Service, and coordinate the department’s soon-to-be-announced “Captstone Experience” program, in addition to teaching a variety of courses.

Five new full-time visiting faculty will be teaching in the department this academic year: Jill Locke, Visiting Associate Professor in Political Theory, is on leave from Gustavus Adolphus College; Chris Lawrence, Ph.D., The University of Mississippi, and Gary Brooks, Ph.D., The University of Kansas, will be Visiting Assistant and Associate Professors, respectively, in American Politics; Alexander Vuving, Ph.D., University of Mainz and a Research Fellow at Harvard University, and Khaled Helmy, pursuing his Ph.D. at Harvard University, will both contribute courses in Comparative Politics (of Asia and the Middle East, respectively) and International Relations.

Our adjunct instructors for the fall include Michael Sherman, J.D. from Georgetown University, who will teach “Big Easy Politics,” and Phuong Pham, Ph.D., Tulane University, and a professor at Tulane’s own Payson Center for International Development, who will teach on transitional justice and human rights. Also, we welcome two UNO Ph.D.s to the adjunct ranks: Professor Heidi Unter and Professor Rosalind Blanco-Cook.

Aimee Custis, an Honors graduate in Political Science from the class of 2007, recently interviewed Clegg Ivey, an Honors graduate of the class of 1993, who had the distinction of graduating magna cum laude with degrees in Political Science, Classics, History and Philosophy. Learn more about this and other outstanding Tulane alumni by reading their stories in our "Where do I go from here?" section.

Beginning this month the Political Science Department of Tulane University will feature the stories of various department alumni. Our new section, entitled "Where do I go from here," provides students with a valuable opportunity to observe the many ways in which their degree can be put to use. If you are an alum who is interested in sharing your story an online submission form will soon be available. Until then, please email polisci@tulane.edu indicating your interest in participating.

Senior Evan Bieber, a Tulane political science major, has won the James R. Moffett Award for his paper on the modern presidency. Evan is one of two students, the other being Stephen Richer, representing Tulane Univ at this year’s Center for the Study of the Presidency fellowship program. CSP Fellows meet twice during the academic year for extended weekends in DC, and work on a research project over the course of their fellowship, in association with faculty both in the Tulane Political Science Department and with a faculty mentor from another university, affiliated with CSP. The award also included $1000.00 cash.

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