Home

          William J. Miller, The University of Akron
          Helen G. Boutrous, Mount St. Mary’s College

The Teaching Across the Discipline track examined ways in which academicians can successfully overcome student misperceptions and help engage them in the political world.  Participants brought forth ideas on innovative teaching methods that can be utilized across the discipline.  Beginning with the simple idea that political science—unlike its natural science brethren—cannot occur in a vacuum.  The track, which consisted of professors and graduate students representing a wide-variety of schools (from small community colleges to large research campuses), ultimately found that an “interdisciplinary mindset” needs to be cultured that allows faculty to move past their graduate school socialization to better appreciate the contributions of all subfields of political science.  To truly help students learn political science, we need to desocialize them with the sole intent of resocializing them with a more critical understanding of politics.  By getting past intradisciplinary battles, being open to other disciplines outside of political science, and being willing to despecialize at time, we can most efficiently begin to help students look past their misconceptions on politics.

Kenneth Betsalel (University of North Carolina at Asheville) began our presentations by describing a collaborative interdisciplinary undergraduate research project that examines the meaning of community.  Building on cultural anthropology and utilizing students as colleagues, Betsalel has worked to utilize interviews, the contextualization of documents, and photographs to begin shaping the meaning of community.   Betsalel finds numerous benefits to such an interdisciplinary approach, including: moving politics from a mere interest to a narrative, learning the importance of trust (between researchers and between researchers and subjects), experiencing the benefit of conducting research without a pre-set agenda, and being willing to trespass on other disciplines in order to gain a thick description.

William J. Miller and Derek Feuerstein (The University of Akron) brought forth a question of how to best teach undergraduate students about the bureaucracy.  Despite the fact that most every aspect of political life points to Americans disliking bureaucracy (from textbooks, to political satire, to media portrayals), public opinion polls show that Americans in fact favorably view bureaucracy.  Teaching bureaucracy consequently becomes extremely important in introductory courses.  Professors must overcome the myths of bureaucracy.  Methods on how to best do so were examined during our discussion, along with a cursory examination of the relationship between political science and public administration.

Deanna Malatesta and Sheila Suess Kennedy (Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis) continued on a public administration angle when discussing whether administrative ethics can actually be taught.  The goals of administrative ethics (particularly in an M.P.A. program that is producing practitioners) are to help students be aware of ethical issues and problems, to analyze these situations, and ultimately to foster and cultivate an attitude of moral obligation.  Through concise analyses of ethical dilemmas that students find in newspapers, faculty can begin to help students see that the rules are not always self-evident and oftentimes ethical—particularly the interplay of ethics and discretion—can be quite blurred.

Matthew Moore (California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo) returned the group to the idea of intradisciplinary approaches while presenting survey results from political theorists about what they include in political theory classes and how they teach it.  He showed that variety exists in every aspect with different faculty including varying theorists and utilizing different methods.  He did, however, note that two models emerge for the design of classes: a thematic model and a chronological model.  Further, he found varying results regarding the types of texts required in theory classes.  The discussion went broader and focused on where political theorists see themselves fitting best in academia.  We discussed the relationship between political theorists and historians, classical scholars, and comparative literature.

The track concluded with the development of four points that we believe—if encouraged—will best assist faculty in overcoming student misperceptions and helping to get them engaged in politics:

1) bridging the differences within our discipline;
2) using approaches beyond political science;
3) recognizing that teaching calls for a breadth of knowledge that cuts across the discipline; and
4) conversation within institutions supporting interdisciplinary approaches.

To begin, we need to recognize the strengths of the varying sub-disciplines within political science.  While graduate school has socialized members of the academy into particular patterns of thought,  intradisciplinary conflict will not assist students—particularly at the undergraduate level—in receiving a well-rounded background in political science.  Further, it is imperative for political science to recognize the relatedness of our discipline to areas such as history, economics, psychology, cultural anthropology, and sociology.  Beyond mere recognition, the field would be able to gain from considering research techniques and practices and determining potential ways to cross-utilize methods.  Ultimately, the Teaching Across the Discipline track returned to the idea of the “interdisciplinary mindset” where we recognize that in a globalized world, it is not merely our discipline that we will need to consider.  While interdisciplinary teaching will likely require additional preparation for faculty and cooperation from campus administrators and other departments, the net benefits to students and the discipline of political science will ultimately make the endeavor worthwhile.