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Leah Wing, Senior Lecturer II of Legal Studies has been awarded this year’s UMass College of Social & Behavioral Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award. This award celebrates exceptional teaching, mentoring, and curriculum development efforts, and their impact on students.

A news analysis on whether members of Congress represent the views of the poor and middle class or the wealthy includes research done by four sets of political scientists including Brian F. Schaffner & Jesse H. Rhodes, political science. 

Schaffner comments about the legal challenge to a Kansas law that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote.

Research on voters in the 2016 presidential election done by Brian F. Schaffner is cited in a story about how the Democrats who are winning special elections this year have changed to a strategy most often used by Republican. 

In the New York Times, Brian explains that exit polls are difficult to read, especially on election day when the exact demographics of the electorate are not yet known. 

Schaffner says research on the 2016 presidential election supports the idea that racism and sexism were keys to Donald Trump’s victory.

 

 

Paul Musgrave, political science, is one of several people interviewed about why they have deleted their Facebook accounts following the revelation that Cambridge Analytica in Great Britain improperly gained access to user information and used it during the 2016 political campaign. 

Kevin L. Young, associate professor of political science, has been appointed associate director of the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) for the 2018-19 academic year. He replaces Henry Renski, associate professor of regional planning, who is completing a three-year term.  

Tatishe Nteta, political science, is interviewed on the PBS podcast Code Switch about how he and his colleagues found that racial animus and prejudice were the strongest factor influencing whether fans thought top college players, who are mostly African American, should be paid.

 

Alternative Spring Break brings Academic Fellows to DC for networking and professional development opportunities The University of Massachusetts Academic Fellows Program (AFP) embarked on its inaugural Alternative Spring Break trip to Washington, DC from March 9-13, taking 19 AFP participants to the nation’s capital. The AFP brings specialized opportunities and programs for first generation and ALANA undergraduate students in the UMass College of Social & Behavioral Sciences.

Alasdair S. Roberts, director of the School of Public Policy, writes an essay in The Conversation where he argues that the idea of American exceptionalism – that the country has a mission and character that makes it different from other nations – doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. 

An op-ed co-authored by Brian Schaffner and Jesse Rhodes, political science, says analysts of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections are missing a key group: the more than 4 million voters, disproportionately young and black, who supported Obama and didn’t vote in 2016. 

Paul Musgrave, political science, comments on ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his tenure as the nation’s top diplomat. “Tillerson would be at or near the bottom of the list of secretaries of state, not just in the post-Second World War world but in the record of US secretaries of state,” says Musgrave.

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