Faculty Accomplishments 2024
Our faculty continue to demonstrate their commitment to excellence in the field of political science. We are proud of the individual and collective contributions to service, teaching, and research exemplified in 2024.
An immense amount of service was provided to the College and University. Our faculty served as chairs of the All University Honors Committee, Senate Judiciary Committee, Council on Liberal Education, as well as co-chair of the University Core Curriculum Committee. They also served on committees such as the Presidential Task Force on Institutional Statements, Senate Academic Freedom and Tenure, Faculty Consultative Committee, Senate Consultative Committee, and CLA Promotion and Tenure. Service was extended to various other units of the University, including the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change and the Human Rights Program.
Our faculty also provided service to the discipline in various ways. Over 100 reviews for leading journals were written. We served on ten promotion and tenure reviews outside our department, award committees and task forces for various professional associations, such as the presidency of the International Society for Political Psychology. We also held 30 different positions on various editorial boards, including the co-editorship of Comparative Political Studies.
Leading up to the 2024 election and beyond, we were dedicated to public engagement of all forms. We appeared in media ranging from print, social media, podcasts, to television, around the world, offering our expertise. Our department hosted our bi-annual signature event, Views From the U: The Political Science of Election 2024, featuring six of our faculty members.
We continue to offer a high-quality curriculum. Several faculty members prepared new courses, covering topics such as Chinese politics, climate change, and empire, that enhanced our curriculum. Across our classes, we enrolled 3,391 students in the 2023-24 year and 3,456 in the 2024-25 year.
In recognition of her passion and commitment to teaching, Kathleen Collins received the 2024 Red Motley Exemplary Teaching Award.
Our faculty mentored dozens of undergraduate students through the department's Distinguished Undergraduate Research Program, the College's Dean's First-Year Research & Creative Scholars program, and honors thesis committee service. Both formal and informal graduate student mentorship was extended to students in our program and elsewhere through the various stages of pursuing a PhD.
We had a very active and impressive year in research, as well. Three of our faculty published books in 2024: Tanisha Fazal published Military Medicine and the Hidden Costs of War with Oxford University Press, August Nimtz published The Communist and the Revolutionary Liberal in the Second American Revolution with Brill Publishers, and Paul Goren published Moral Issues with the University of Chicago Press. Paul Goren also published a monograph, Stronger Issues, Weaker Predispositions, in Cambridge Elements.
Members of our department produced 20 peer-reviewed articles, from The Journal of Politics to Comparative Political Studies, Armed Forces & Society to Business and Politics. Additionally, we edited special issues of Law and Social Inquiry and Global Studies Quarterly.
We had ten additional publications, made up of chapters in edited volumes, correspondence, and other publications in outlets such as International Security and Southwest Journal of International Law.
Our faculty were recognized for their research through various awards. Jane Sumner received the Warwick Mid-Career Faculty Award, supporting her work on the politics of small business ownership. APSA's Law and Court section awarded Lisa Hilbink the Lasting Contribution Award for her 2007 book, Judges beyond Politics in Democracy and Dictatorship. Ron Krebs received the Distinguished McKnight Professorship, an honor bestowed on the basis of merit, research, leadership, and other accomplishments.
We are immensely proud of our faculty's accomplishments in 2024, and we look forward to another exciting year in 2025.
