Political Science Archives - ��ý��Ƶ

On Main Hall Green With … Arnold Shober: Eye on politics, public policy

Communications — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 13:54:58 +0000

��ý��Ƶ the series: On Main Hall Green With … is an opportunity to connect with faculty on things in and out of the classroom. We’re featuring a different ��ý��Ƶ faculty member each time — same questions, different answers.

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Arnold Shober, professor of government, has been a close watcher of and a frequent commentator on the political process in the United States—locally, statewide, and nationally.

He teaches courses in American federalism, elections, media, and public policy, and speaks frequently to media and community groups on political matters. He also oversees independent studies focused on student research and operates a speaker series on civil liberties.

A member of the ��ý��Ƶ faculty since 2006 and the author of three books on politics and public policy, Shober earned ��ý��Ƶ’s Excellence in Scholarship award in 2015.

He holds a bachelor’s degree from Bradley University and master’s and doctorate degrees in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We caught up with him to talk about interests in and out of the classroom.

IN THE CLASSROOM

Inside info: What’s one thing you want every student coming into your classes to know about you?

My favorite comic strip is the Calvin and Hobbes for April 23, 1995: “Look at all the stars…” You can look it up, but the moral of the story is to embrace humility and perspective. We live in a world of shallow, performative noise — TikTok, anyone? — and one of the most important things I value in my classroom is the ability to listen. That goes for presidential candidates as much as it does for you and me. Can you hear what someone else is saying — someone with the bumper sticker for that guy?

Pursue a major in government

Explore political ideas of past, present, and future in ��ý��Ƶ’s robust program. Immerse yourself in interplay of policy, power, and public life.

Getting energized: What work have you done or will you be doing at ��ý��Ƶ that gets you the most excited?

In class, I am always most excited to hear how students develop their own papers or research projects. Iknow what I am interested in, but students have different approaches to their own topics. Watching that develop is among the most satisfying parts of my work at ��ý��Ƶ.

One of my favorite activities outside the classroom is talking with the community about political ideology, development of political parties, and education policy; really, the things I do in class. I’ve been on a local radio station (WHBY) a long time and have done talks for community groups longer. Working at a college, it is easy to forget that our students will be “out there” soon, and I find talking with “out there” keeps my classroom discussions relevant and timely. Not to mention on my toes: Community members ask different questions!

Going places: Is there an example of somewhere your career has taken you (either a physical space or something more intellectual, emotional or spiritual) that took you by surprise?

I have always appreciated asking people questions, whether for research interviews, class projects, or reviews. There is something very fulfilling in listening to how others think. I’ve often been surprised how people explain their actions or beliefs, if only you give them space to do so. The act of listening builds rapport, trust, and community even when those explanations confirm your expectations.

OUT OF THE CLASSROOM

This or that: If you weren’t teaching for a living, what would you be doing?

No one is told what would have happened, but my alternate career path was in engineering or maybe a history Ph.D. I still love talking about the contingencies of history, and my students probably get more history in class than they expect. But I’ve always loved being outside, and when I wasn’t teaching politics in graduate school, I was working on the UW research farm. Now we have some cider apple trees, lavender, and honey bees. I suppose I’d be outside with a sun-burnt nose.

Right at home: Whether for work, relaxation or reflection, what’s your favorite spot on campus?

It sounds academic, but I love the library. I can’t quite shake an indelible affinity for mouldering paper. I can’t work there, because I wind up reading a book somewhere in JF or LB or HM about something I knew nothing about. The loss of browsing is one of the great costs of the internet.

One book, one recording, one film: Name one of each that speaks to your soul? Or you would recommend to a friend? Or both?

I’ll take liberties with this question and give two books long in print: The Brothers Karamazov (my favorite book, although the New Yorker comic, “Super Karamazov Bros.” kinda sums it up) and Cry, The Beloved Country. Both books speak to the regenerative power of grace and forgiveness, the appearance of which our politics don’t permit much. I do like Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, too, which nods toward the crassness of process that accompanies the “firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,” as Lincoln put it. Tommy Lee Jones is terrific as Thaddeus Stevens.

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Podair to discuss America’s four ‘foundings’ in April 26 Povolny lecture

Communications — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 13:36:08 +0000

Jerald Podair, ��ý��Ƶ emeritus professor of history, will deliver a Povolny lecture on Tuesday that focuses on what he calls the four “foundings” of the United States.

“America’s Four Foundings – and What They Mean for America’s Global Role” is set for 4:30 p.m. in Steitz Hall 102. It’s available in person to the ��ý��Ƶ community, with pandemic protocols in place. It also will be available for anyone as an online webinar at: .

Podair, co-editor of The Routledge History of the 20th Century United States and author of the forthcoming Promised Lands: A History of the American People in the Twentieth Century, will contend that the U.S. has had four national “foundings,” as it first established and then committed itself to realizing the principles of legal equality (1787 and 1865) and substantive equity (1964 and 2020). He will discuss how and why these “foundings” occurred, and how America’s most recent grappling with racial and social upheaval will affect its global role, reach, and standing in the 21st century.

Named in honor of the late Mojmir Povolny, a long-time ��ý��Ƶ government professor, the Povolny Lecture Series promotes interest and discussion on issues of moral significance and ethical dimensions.

“I’m going to argue that the United States has had four ‘foundings,’” Podair said. “The first, with the adoption of the Constitution in 1787, established the principle—goal, really, since it was not immediately realized—of legal equality for all Americans.

The second ‘’founding,” which began in 1865 with the North’s victory in the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, was an effort to realize that goal of equality before the law, Podair said.

“The 14th and 15th Amendments and the Civil Rights Act of 1875, among other legislative enactments, were the leading edges of this effort,” he said.

Podair said the third “founding,” which had its genesis with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the various programs of what became known as affirmative action, sought to substitute the idea of substantive equity in life outcomes for the legal equality of the first two “foundings.”

“The fourth ‘founding,’ which began in 2020 and is still unfolding, is the realization of the goals of the third,” he said. “The response to the murder of George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, anti-racism, Defund the Police, the ‘progressive prosecutor’ movement, bail and sentencing reform, and the mainstreaming of socialism through political figures such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—all are realizations of the equity-oriented goals of the third ‘founding.’”

Podair said he will discuss how the most recent events will impact America’s role in the world.

“I argue that the loss of what I call ‘moral clarity’ in American domestic politics will inhibit and foreshorten its global leadership,” he said. “The fourth ‘founding’ will put the concept of American exceptionalism to rest, since that idea was based on the assumption that America had a ‘lesson for the world’ that justified the imposition of its power. But a nation striving for substantive equity at home lacks the moral clarity to nation-build abroad, and I believe that it will lead to diminished American global authority in the 21st century. Whether this is good or bad for the world, only time will tell.”

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Student snapshot: Luis Trejo explores interests in saxophone, government

Communications — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 18:53:24 +0000

Sophomore Luis Trejo discovered ��ý��Ƶ through his high school choir director.

Originally intending to study music education, his time at ��ý��Ƶ helped him discover a love for performance, leading him to eventually study both saxophone performance and government. In addition to his studies, Trejo enjoys participating in Greek life and intramural soccer on campus.

“The saxophone studio is very creative and the students perform at a very high level, which caught my eye,” he said.

Like so many others, Trejo is grateful for the wide range of academic opportunities at ��ý��Ƶ, which has allowed him to grow in both the performance and government tracks. He says it is because of the professors at ��ý��Ƶ that he was able to find the confidence to pursue both majors.

“With the wide variety of course subjects that are available to me regardless of my major, ��ý��Ƶ helps me to invest in myself,” he said.

Looking to life after ��ý��Ƶ, Luis is considering law school, but is also keeping grad school for performance in the back of his mind.

Quick Facts

Name: Luis Trejo

Class Year: 2024

Area(s) of study: Government, saxophone performance

Hometown: Aurora, Illinois

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Eli Ferrell’s journey of compassion: From D.C. internship to sustainability on campus

Communications — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 20:06:44 +0000

Eli Ferrell, a ��ý��Ƶ senior, wants to use his recent experience in the Washington Semester program to pursue his passions.

The government major from Mill Valley, California, spent the fall in Washington, D.C. He attended the Washington Semester program through American University, which included a congressional internship with U.S. Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin, and he hopes it’ll be a stepping stone to eventually working as a congressional staffer for the House Agriculture Committee or the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Washington Semester program is open to ��ý��Ƶ students of any major. The participating students study for a semester at American University while also pursuing both a relevant internship and an independent study project.

Arnold Shober, professor of government, serves as an advisor for the program, which can include study of American politics, international environment and development, international law, justice, conflict resolution, foreign policy, and global economics, among other topics. Any student interested can explore these topics in a governmental setting.

For his internship, Ferrell worked for Kind, who has represented the Third Congressional District of Wisconsin since 2007.

“I did a lot for him,” Ferrell said. “I helped write co-sponsor requests and scheduling requests, I wrote briefings for relevant memos. Did a lot of constituent correspondence… compiled press on the congressman on a daily basis; in the morning I would go in and compile the relevant news he was mentioned in so he’d be aware what was going on.”

A bevy of ��ý��Ƶ experiences

Ferrell’s list of accomplishments at ��ý��Ƶ is already impressive. It started with him participating in the Triple Crown, a series of 200-mile bike races held every year in northern California.

“Freshman year, I was super involved in the bike team,” said Ferrell, who also said “people knew me as ‘the bike guy.’”

Ferrell found himself on his path against suffering during Fall Term of his sophomore year. Interested in religions and wanting a hands-on experience, he traveled to Bodh Gaya, India, the place where the Buddha is said to have been enlightened.

“I really just wanted to travel,” Ferrell said. “I think you learn so much more through experiences, or at least, remember more through experiences.”

While in Bodh Gaya, Ferrell stayed in a monastery and studied various Buddhist sects.

Ferrell’s studies also included Buddhist-Muslim conflicts, for which he journeyed into rural Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) to talk to local Buddhists about Myanmar’s Muslim communities.

Ferrell also has found ways to make positive impacts on campus and in Appleton.

“I was in LUCC my first two years; that was a hoot, a lot of fun,” he said.

Ferrell and some friends advocated for “Meatless Mondays” in Andrew Commons, an effort to lessen the amount of meat being served on campus, and made an application to the Environmental Sustainability Committee to install a bike stand and pump in front of Sage Hall.

“It’s not super public, but I’m still super stoked we got that done; that was fun,” Ferrell said of those efforts. “It feels so good to have a little impact on ��ý��Ƶ.”

Ferrell’s outreach has extended beyond campus through his work for support agencies such as Harbor House, a domestic abuse shelter in Appleton. Ferrell would spend Monday evenings helping children at Harbor House while their mothers participated in programming.

In addition, Ferrell worked for a summer as an interpreter for Safe Passage, a nonprofit based in New York City that provides undocumented children facing deportation with free legal services such as affidavits, which Ferrell helped write.

“I think it helped me become really humble, much more compassionate, realizing what other people go through, realizing how much privilege I have,” Ferrell said.

Ferrell was originally a religious studies major, but has switched to a government major.

“I was drawn to Buddhism because it addresses the question of suffering on an individual level, but … I felt like government was more applicable to what I potentially might do,” he said.

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On Main Hall Green With … Jason Brozek: Global perspective, local impact

Communications — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 01:36:51 +0000

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Jason Brozek is seemingly everywhere on the ��ý��Ƶ campus.

The Stephen Edward Scarff Professor of International Affairs and associate professor of government is a highly respected professor in Government as well as the interdisciplinary departments of Global Studies and Environmental Studies. He chairs the latter, which launched an Environmental Science major earlier this year. And he’s playing a lead role in developing a soon-to-be-announced International Relations major.

Brozek serves as a special assistant to the president and was recently named one of the co-leads for a campus-wide guiding coalition charged with visioning ��ý��Ƶ’s future.

He recently helped launch and lead the Social & Environmental Justice Cohort summer internship program, which debuted this summer in collaboration with a bevy of nonprofit organizations in the Milwaukee metro area.

Off campus, Brozek has been an advocate in the Fox Valley for environmental justice and bicycle-related safety and growth, serving on the Outagamie County Greenway Implementation Committee and Appleton Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee. He also is a member of the Appleton Library Board.

In his spare time, he runs ultramarathons.

Brozek joined the ��ý��Ƶ faculty in 2008, specializing in international security, global climate politics, water conflict, and international law. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Wayne State College and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

We caught up with Brozek to talk about interests in and out of the classroom.

In the classroom

Inside info: What’s one thing you want every student coming into your classes to know about you?

This is my 13th year at LU and my 20th year teaching college students, and I love it—but I still get nervous before every single class. Some of that is probably lingering imposter syndrome—it’s only a matter of time before everyone realizes I’m a fraud!—but I think it’s also because I genuinely, deeply care about what my students get out of our classes together.

Getting energized: What work have you done or will you be doing at ��ý��Ƶ that gets you the most excited?

Right now, at this very moment, I’m just jazzed to be back in the classroom again after four terms of teaching with Zoom. But bigger picture, I’ve started working with a group of folks from every slice of the ��ý��Ƶ community on a project about envisioning LU’s future. We’re just getting started, but after 18-plus months of pandemic, I think there’s a lot of people who are ready to think big about charting a course for the future. What do we want ��ý��Ƶ to be, what can we achieve together, and how do we get from here to there?

Going places: Is there an example of somewhere your career has taken you (either a physical space or something more intellectual, emotional or spiritual) that took you by surprise?

It still feels surreal sometimes that I’ve had the chance to take dozens and dozens of students to China over the last 10 years. I was a first-generation college student who grew up on a family farm in Nebraska, and studying abroad was never an option for me. No one encouraged me to think about it, and even if they had, the price tag would have made it a non-starter. Eighteen-year-old me would be gobsmacked. I’m hoping we can nail down the funding to get back to international study trips the moment it’s safe again.

Out of the classroom

This or that: If you weren’t teaching for a living, what would you be doing?

Ha! I honestly don’t know. Maybe something in city planning? That seems like a pretty big leap from international politics, but there’s something really tangible and powerful about libraries, parks, and bike paths. Fortunately, Appleton is a place where I can dip my toes in that a bit; so I’m not a city planner, but you can definitely find me at Council meetings arguing about stuff like giving away public space to parking.

Right at home: Whether for work, relaxation or reflection, what’s your favorite spot on campus?

Maybe it’s a cliched, too-easy answer, but I honestly love walking by the river. LU had its back turned to the water for a long, long time and we’ve only started embracing the Fox River in the last 10 to 15 years. It’s such a gem, and I hope we keep pivoting our physical campus toward the water as we build and expand.

One book, one recording, one film: Name one of each that speaks to your soul? Or you would recommend to a friend? Or both?

Sci-fi and pop culture tell stories about politics that no other medium can, and I’m a huge proponent of taking them seriously. For example, Octavia Butler’s reflection on climate change and capitalism in the dystopian sci-fi book Parable of the Sower is something everybody should read. And I don’t know of anything as high profile as Falcon and the Winter Soldier that’s tackling the intersection of race and patriotism/nationalism. Doing it through the lens of Marvel superheroes means there’s a lot of new folks wrestling with the question of what it means for a Black man, Sam Wilson, to carry the shield of Captain America. Sure, it’s a Disney+ show with a tie-in action figure line, but it’s also like a contemporary version of Frederick Douglass’s “What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July?” I’m also a podcast dork, and I can’t recommend the series This Land highly enough. It’s by Rebecca Nagle, a member of Cherokee Nation, and the series is about constitutional law, Native America rights, and tribal policies in the U.S.

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Former U.S. ambassador brings insights to ��ý��Ƶ as visiting Scarff professor

Communications — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 20:02:12 +0000

Shaun Donnelly ’68 says his message to ��ý��Ƶ students interested in careers with an international focus is a simple one.

You’re in the right place.

“My message is that I think a good liberal arts education is about the best preparation you can have for working internationally,” Donnelly said during a break from participating in economics and government class discussions as the at ��ý��Ƶ. “The world is constantly changing and you’ve got to be able to adjust.”

Donnelly forged a 36-year career with the U.S. Foreign Service, retiring in 2008. He served as U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka from 1997 to 2000, appointed by President Bill Clinton, and worked as deputy ambassador in Tunisia and Mali, among other positions. He spent 15 of those 36 years living and working abroad.

He is spending two weeks in October on the ��ý��Ƶ campus, the latest in a line of distinguished public servants, professional leaders, and scholars who have shared insights and collaborated with students and faculty since the Scarff Professorship was established in 1989 by Edward and Nancy Scarff in memory of their son, Stephen. It is designed to bring civic leaders and scholars to ��ý��Ƶ to provide broad perspectives on the central issues of the day.

Donnelly, who studied economics at ��ý��Ƶ, worked on international economics and trade policies during much of his Foreign Service career and continues to work part-time as a consultant for the United States Council for International Business (USCIB). He said students today need to be aware that there will almost certainly be an international component to their work no matter the field they’re in.

Shaun Donnelly on liberal arts colleges preparing students to work internationally: “It’s a good training ground, I would argue.”

“They are going to be living in a world that’s going to be increasingly international,” Donnelly said. “They may think, oh, I’m going to work for a company like Kimberly-Clark or Caterpillar or something, but those are international companies. They’re competing with international companies and their markets are going to be increasingly outside of the U.S.”

He encouraged students to seek out international opportunities while in school, from studying foreign languages, to taking educational trips abroad, to attending events hosted by international students on campus.

Donnelly found his path into the U.S. Foreign Service while volunteering with the Peace Corps in Tunisia shortly after graduating from ��ý��Ƶ in 1968. He took his first assignment during the administration of Richard Nixon and would work through seven presidents, retiring as George W. Bush was leaving office.

He said he leaned into his ��ý��Ƶ education each step of the way as he climbed the ranks as a government servant, working in Senegal for two and a half years, Ethiopia for two years, Egypt for two years, Mali for two years, Tunisia for three years, and Sri Lanka for three years.

He quickly learned to navigate the world of government service when elections shuffle the players.

“Ninety percent of American foreign policy doesn’t change,” Donnelly said. “We’re doing visas for people coming, we’re out there trying to promote American companies, we’re looking for support at the UN for democracy. That doesn’t change. But you do see changes when a new administration comes in.”

Some administrations he worked through were more idealistic in their foreign policies, he said. Others were more pragmatic. As an employee of the government, you aren’t always going to agree with policies, but you have a job to do, he said.

“I quickly realized that I was not elected to make these policies,” Donnelly said. “We have a process. Government employees are basically paid to implement them. So, I say to young people all the time, if you are going to go work for the government—internationally or domestic—you need to know enough about yourself to know if you’re comfortable being a government servant.”

Donnelly is one of four ��ý��Ƶ alumni who have been appointed U.S. ambassadors by presidents, joining Walter North ’72, U.S. ambassador to Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the Republic of Vanuatu from 2012 to 2016; Christopher Murray ’75, U.S. ambassador to the Republic of the Congo from 2010 to 2013; and David Mulford ’59, U.S. ambassador to India from 2004 to 2009.

“All of the traits that make someone successful in business or academia or journalism or whatever it is, you need all of those to succeed in international work,” Donnelly said. “But you also need to be culturally sensitive and be understanding and be intellectually curious about other cultures and free from quick value judgments. You have to be willing to try to understand the complexities of the international world.

“And I do think a good liberal arts college like ��ý��Ƶ does that. It’s a good training ground, I would argue.”

Jason Brozek, the Stephen Edward Scarff Professor of International Affairs and associate professor of government, has been coordinating Donnelly’s visit to ��ý��Ƶ, bringing him into courses ranging from International Law, to Intro to Political Science, to Effective Altruism. Donnelly also is meeting with students in the Career Center and talking with faculty.

He was initially due to be the Distinguished Visiting Scarff Professor in Spring 2020, but that was postponed due to the pandemic. In Spring 2021, he and Brozek worked to split the duties of the position to accommodate the times. He spent a week with Brozek’s remote-synchronous Intro to International Relations class, and in May he delivered a remote public lecture titled “America’s Trade Mess: Who Caused it, and Can Biden Fix it?”

“Thanks to the support of the Scarff family over the last three decades, we’ve been able to connect students with ambassadors, diplomats, leaders of global nonprofits, and other experts in international affairs,” Brozek said.

Scarff visiting professors have included, among others, William Sloane Coffin Jr., civil rights and peace activist; Takakazu Kuriyama, former ambassador of Japan to the United States; George Meyer, former secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; Robert Suettinger ’68, Intelligence analyst and China policy expert; Russ Feingold, former U.S. senator from Wisconsin; and Nancy Hendry, international attorney fighting sexual exploitation.

“It’s been an incredible opportunity to enrich our academic community and to make the work of international politics tangible and hands-on for multiple decades of Lawrentians,” Brozek said.

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Podcasting evolves into increasingly popular teaching tool at ��ý��Ƶ

Communications — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 15:07:16 +0000

Eyes got a little wide when Jason Brozek told his Government 425: War & Pop Culture students they’d be researching, scripting, and recording a series of podcasts during fall term.

Fallon Sellers ’20 just smiled and nodded.

The ��ý��Ƶ senior, one of about 20 students in the class, knew the drill, having done a podcast in the spring in Brozek’s Environmental Justice class and already being deep into a podcast in Linnet Ramos’ fall term Psychopharmacology & Behavior class.

“I was able to be a little reassuring to everybody else,” Sellers said.

Welcome to the world of classroom podcasting.

As the popularity of podcasts has exploded over the past few years and the technology for recording and sharing podcasts has been streamlined, professors have increasingly turned to the format as an alternate means of research and study in their classes. Instead of an end-of-term paper being due, students are showcasing what they’ve learned by creating episodes of podcasts that will in many cases be accessible to anyone who wants to listen.

At ��ý��Ƶ, the creation of podcasts as part of coursework is becoming more frequent. Brozek and Ramos are the latest, but they are far from alone. Marcia Bjornerud in geosciences, Brigid Vance in history, and Israel Del Toro in biology, among others, have all experimented with podcasting in their classes.

“First, the barrier to entry is low,” Jedidiah Rex, a designer on ��ý��Ƶ’s Instructional Technology staff, said of the increase in podcast usage as a teaching strategy. “The tools necessary to create podcasts are easy to use. Second, podcasting makes use of writing skills but offers an opportunity for students to express creativity. There is a pedagogical value in students doing this work.”

Podcast numbers keep growing

According to a survey from Edison Research and Triton Digital, released earlier this year, the percentage of U.S. residents 12 and older who have listened to a podcast at least once surpassed 50% for the first time. That milestone marks a “watershed moment” for podcasting, Edison Senior Vice President Tom Webster wrote in a blog entry about the report.

“With over half of Americans 12+ saying that they have listened to a podcast, the medium has firmly crossed into the mainstream,” he wrote.

Brozek said he was intrigued to incorporate podcasts into his teaching in part because it gives his students a chance to create something that can be shared much wider. Topics his students are exploring in the areas of environmental justice and war and pop culture have potential audiences across the globe.

“They’re out there,” Brozek said of the his students did in spring term. “When I go through my podcast app, they are just in my list of podcasts along with the other things I listen to. I like the idea that they’re available for a much wider community.”

In the process, the students are learning technical skills, writing strategies, script creation, interviewing techniques, and copyright laws, all valuable things no matter what career path they might be eyeing.

“I thought this was a way we could keep expanding the quiver of professional skills that we’re trying to help students learn,” Brozek said.

They’re also learning and discussing privacy topics — putting yourself in the public conversation, and what that means. That’s an issue professors using podcast technology need to navigate.

“One of the challenges of doing public-facing scholarship in classes is that students have reasonable privacy concerns, but we can always find a way to work within those boundaries,” Brozek said. (To that end, the release of some or all of the podcasts created in the War and Pop Culture class will be held until early in winter term to make sure all participants are comfortable with the process).

While most of the students in the Brozek and Ramos classes were new to creating their own podcasts, most had long been consumers of the format.

“Podcasts are ubiquitous, consumed by this generation, and it’s a genre that they largely already understand,” said Andrew McSorely, a reference and digital librarian in ��ý��Ƶ’s Seeley G. Mudd Library. “It’s not a huge leap to apply it to the classroom, and, generally speaking, it’s as easy to set up and get students to engage with as a blog. Because of that, it’s hard to say how many classrooms are utilizing podcast assignments, but there’s no question that more instructors have asked about this technology in the library the past few years.”

From left: Fallon Sellers ’20, Georgia Greenberg ’20, and Basil Eastman-Kiesow ’20 record a podcast for their War and Pop Culture class taught by government professor Jason Brozek.

Finding an audience

The appeal comes as podcasts have transitioned from the domain of sports and pop culture to something that can find niche audiences in almost any sector.

“Where once it was distinctly for entertainment purposes, it now can hold scholarship and be taken seriously,” McSorely said. “For content creators in the academy, this serves as a way to engage with new audiences, and for undergraduates, it’s a means of expression that can seem more natural than a traditional essay.”

In Ramos’ psychopharmacology course, the students, working in groups of three to five, are recording video podcasts where they explain, critique, and discuss research articles on a specific drug. The episodes are being made available on the .

“Often times in classes, students read an article, create a PowerPoint presentation that describes it and mention a couple of ideas on how it can be improved,” Ramos said. “But rarely do I get to hear how students felt after reading the article or get to hear their opinions on why it matters, what they learned from it, how it can impact other sciences or society.”

In Brozek’s War & Pop Culture class, the students have dug into topics ranging from post-nuclear apocalypse to how terrorism is depicted in the media to the use of propaganda to influence audiences during wartime. Doing that in a podcast allows not only for substantial research but also thorough discussion.

“Part of what they’re required to do in the podcast is bring in academic scholarship,” Brozek said as the fall term course got rolling. “This new course is designed around thinking about the way political science scholars write about and think about issues related to war, like terrorism, extraordinary, exceptional circumstances, torture, things like that. Think about the way political science crafts narratives and asks and answers questions and the way pop culture crafts those narratives — where they may have some overlap, where there are differences, what those differences mean, how concerned we ought to be about the differences.

“If (pop culture) is where most people are getting their perspective on terrorism, what does it look like and how consistent is it with the political science literature? So, those are the kind of questions we’re asking in this course.”

For the students, that kind of scholarship isn’t out of the ordinary. Academic work is almost always question-driven. But channeling that work through a podcast takes it in a different direction. That is where excitement meets anxiety, Sellers said.

“Most of the anxiety comes with just learning the technical stuff,” she said. “A podcast is essentially just a conversation. You’re talking through something with your peers. That’s pretty natural to do. I don’t think that’s the hard part. The daunting part was I didn’t have any experience with the computer-related things, the audio techniques, and learning how to use Audacity and how to navigate that.”

Learning those technical skills and related communication skills will pay off later as students enter the job market with a wider breadth of knowledge and know-how. For Sellers, a government major, that’s no small thing.

“Media is so pertinent in our society, and I think it’s so important that higher education is also moving along with that, and we’re learning how to adapt,” she said. “Being able to go into a job and say, ‘Hey, I’m able to produce a podcast, I know how to use these techniques,’ I think people are generally pretty excited about that.

“By the end of my ��ý��Ƶ career, I will have done podcasts on the dairy industry, on pedagogy and propaganda in pop culture and on opioids and how they impact social behavior,” Sellers said. “So, it’s very ��ý��Ƶ, and very well-rounded.”

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Path to Trump? Podair co-authors book that finds answers in legacy of Spiro Agnew

Communications — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 19:24:31 +0000

Nearly three years ago, in the early morning hours of Nov. 9, as the results of one of the most stunning election nights in U.S. history began to come into focus, Jerald Podair sent an urgent email to two fellow history scholars.

They were his co-authors on a book project, in its early stages, about Spiro Agnew, the oft-dismissed former vice president who they believe served as a harbinger for the modern Republican party.

“Our book just became very, very relevant,” Podair wrote in that email as the clock ticked past 3 a.m. and it became clear that Donald Trump would become the nation’s 45th president.

Three tumultuous years later, that book, Republican Populist: Spiro Agnew and the Origins of Donald Trump’s America, has arrived, set to be published Oct. 18 by University of Virginia Press.

��ý��Ƶ history professor Jerald Podair partnered with two other history scholars on a new book on Spiro Agnew, detailing how Richard Nixon’s one-time vice president set a path to the era of Donald Trump. (Photo by Danny Damiani)

In the book, Podair, the Robert S. French Professor of American Studies and professor of history at ��ý��Ƶ, and co-authors Zach Messitte, president of Ripon College, and Charles J. Holden, professor of history at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, detail how the ascent of Trump and his populist base can be traced back to Agnew, whose political star burned bright briefly in the late 1960s and early 1970s before crashing hard.

Agnew was much maligned in his day and is often referenced among the worst vice presidents in history. But Podair, Messitte, and Holden argue that historians and political observers need to take a closer look. Agnew’s populist “everyman” appeal, his very public disdain for political correctness and the academic class, his depictions of the media as the enemy, and his ability to rally supporters by railing against uncomfortable cultural change woke up a political base that would eventually lead the Republican party into the era of Trump.

Agnew was considered a joke by many political pundits of the day when Richard Nixon surprisingly tabbed him as his running mate in 1968. Time magazine called him “a narrow and dangerous man with a genuine capacity for bigotry.”

“That’s how he was viewed,” Podair said. “Just like Donald Trump is viewed in many ways today. But, like Trump, Agnew had much more substance to him and really had a powerful populist message that resonated very deeply with middle Americans at the time — the Trump voters we’d call them today — and may very well have swung the 1968 election to Nixon.”

Interest in the book is already ramping up. An op-ed about Agnew written by the three co-authors appeared in the Baltimore Sun in late September and has since been picked up by numerous other media outlets across the country. A book event featuring Podair, Messitte, and Holden is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Oct. 28 in the Warch Campus Center Cinema at ��ý��Ƶ.

The timing of the book’s release, just weeks after Democrats in the House launched an impeachment inquiry against Trump, should give it prime exposure. It wasn’t necessarily planned that way.

Podair, Messitte, and Holden began conversing about the Agnew book before Trump even declared his bid for the presidency. Its focus was more about Agnew’s role in the transition of the Republican party from one focused on economics and the business elite to one focused on cultural unease and an angry populist reaction.

Messitte and Holden have long studied the political waters of Maryland, from whence Agnew emerged. And Podair is well-versed in the politics and cultural dynamics of the 1960s and the various arcs and swings of politics through the 20th century.

Thus, they agreed to team up on a book project that they believed was important, whether Trump was in play or not.

“We divided the book into sections,” Podair said. “My portion was to explain how the Republican party changed from the 1930s, when it was viewed as the party of the economic elite, to the 1960s, the late ’60s, when it began to be viewed as the party of the average man, the working man. Not necessarily economically populist, but certainly culturally populist.”

The Democratic party, meanwhile, had seen its own role reversal, becoming the party of “cultural elitism” in the 1960s as the country navigated race riots, student rebellions and an anti-war movement that divided much of the country, Podair said.

“Spiro Agnew was uniquely positioned to take advantage of that,” he said.

Agnew would become Nixon’s “point of the spear,” Podair said, ridiculing protesters in often crude and seemingly mean-spirited ways, all the while working up what was a growing base of resentment against the cultural transformations that were taking place in the U.S.

“That flies in the face of the traditional view of Agnew as some bumbling, inarticulate clown,” Podair said. “He did say some things that were gaffes. But there was much more to him than these gaffes, which is what the media focused on. He was able to bring a culturally populist message to the American people and get people who had normally voted for Democrats their whole lives — the New Deal Democrats — and get them to vote for Republicans. And that’s the way I think he shifted the political ground.”

If that sounds very much like 2016, Podair said you are not wrong, and that’s why historians and others who are studying the unfolding drama that is the Trump presidency would do well to zero in on Agnew, from the time he first garnered attention as a national political figure in the late 1960s to his resignation from the vice presidency in late 1973 amid revelations that he committed income tax fraud while governor of Maryland.

“When Trump took the escalator ride and started speaking the way he did, he was really tapping into a welter of cultural resentments,” Podair said. “Whatever you want to call his typical voter — blue collar white voter or alienated working class voter — well, he was tapping into a welter of cultural resentment that Agnew had definitely tapped into. And I would argue that if you took the name off of Agnew’s speeches and updated it a little — obviously there was no Twitter in those days and the media that Agnew was railing against was the three networks, that’s it — these are words that Donald Trump could have spoken.”

All the more reason for historians to take a deeper dive into the makings of Agnew, Podair said. With an impeachment inquiry under way, a 2020 election campaign heating up, and emotions running high, Trump is a daily fixation, for better or worse. Republican Populist may provide a little context as to how we got here.

“Our general thesis is, if you want to understand where Donald Trump came from, he didn’t come out of nowhere,” Podair said. “He has, in fact, deep roots in the changes in the Republican party that go back more than 50 years. If you want to understand Donald Trump, you’ve got to understand Spiro Agnew. He is actually a pivotal figure, and, I think, a very understudied and underrated political figure.”

Book event: A book discussion featuring Podair, Messitte, and Holden will be held at ��ý��Ƶ on Oct. 28. The Main Hall Forum begins at 4:30 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center Cinema. It is free and open to the public.

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