SoTL as a Subfield for Political Science Graduate Programs

ABSTRACT

This article offers a theoretical proposal of how political science graduate programs can emphasize teaching in the discipline by creating the subfield of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Currently, these programs neither prepare their students for academic positions where teaching is valued nor participate in a disciplinary trend that emphasize SoTL. Furthermore, the recent political pressure for political science programs to demonstrate their public worth might be alleviated by the scholarship in teaching and learning, which is more understandable to the public than traditional non-SoTL work. The article concludes with some of the challenges political science programs may confront in institutionalizing a subfield of SoTL and how they can overcome them.

KEYWORDS:

• Graduate education
• pedagogy
• scholarship of teaching and learning

Acknowledgements

A previous version of this article was presented at the 2016 American Political Science Teaching and Learning Conference. I want to thank the participants in the “Teaching How to Teach” track for their constructive criticism and helpful comments as well as the anonymous referees of this article.

Notes on Contributor

Lee Trepanier is a Professor of Political Science at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan. His research interests are the scholarship of teaching and learning in political science, classical and postmodern political philosophy, the works of Eric Voegelin, religion and politics, and politics, literature, and film. He is author and editor of over 15 books and the series editor for Lexington Books’ Politics, Literature, and Film and the academic Web site VoegelinView.

Notes

The neglect of teaching among political science graduate programs, especially among elite ones, is discussed further in this articles section “Political Science Graduate Programs.”

This article lists the top political scientists in 5-year cohorts from 1940–1999, by subfield (c. 2002) and women. All the political scientists listed are known for their scholarship.

For example, the University of Texas at Austin was criticized in Rick O’Donnell’s (2011) report, “Higher Education’s Faculty Productivity Gap: The Cost to Students, Parents & Taxpayers.” Marc Musick (2011), a sociology professor and associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts, subsequently issued his own report to repudiate O’Donnell’s findings: “An Analysis of Faculty Instructional and Grant-based Productivity at the University of Texas at Austin” (Jaschik 2011).

In addition to establishing a task force to issue a report on improving the public perception of political science’s value, APSA also published a special journal issue on this topic in PS: Political Science & Politics. However, only one article addresses teaching as a way “to better communicate Political Science’s public value” (Smith 2015, 1).

Examples of this approach are Boyer (1997) and McKinney (2007).

Students secured postdoctorates (13.62%) and nonacademic positions (9.91%), and 17.07% were not placed at all. The APSA 2014–15 Graduate Placement Survey (APSA 2015b) shows that these trends continue in academic employment in political science: 51.3% secured academic positions; 17% postdoctorates; 12.1% nonacademic; 16.8% not placed.

The 2014-15 Graduate Placement Survey: Preliminary Results (APSA 2015b) shows that these trends continue in academic employment in political science with the exception that there were more placements in Comparative Politics than American Politics.

Positions in American Politics, International Relations, and Comparative Politics were consistently the most posted during this period.

Research institutions, as categorized by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (n.d.), include RU/VH (very high research activity), RU/H (high research activity), and DRU (doctoral/research universities).

For more about the problems with graduate education, refer to Cassuto (2015).

For more about the state of teaching in political science graduate programs, refer to Jones and Woodward (2016) and Kuehl, Eschenburg, and Miller (2016).

I use the U.S. News & World Report’s (“Top Political Science Programs” n.d.) ranking of political science graduate programs. Although some may disagree with its methodology, I suspect the results comport with most political scientists’ assessments of these programs: Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Michigan, Berkeley, Columbia, MIT, University of San Diego, Duke, and University of California at Los Angeles.

Some programs also include Methodology, Formal Political Theory, Political Economy, Public Policy, Political Psychology, Security Studies, Gender and Politics, Law, Courts, and Politics, and Race, Ethnicity, and Politics.

I use the QS World University Ranking of 2015 for the top political science graduate programs in the world. As stated before, although some may disagree with its methodology, I suspect the results comport with most political scientists’ assessments of these programs: Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, London School of Economics (LSE), Science Po Paris, Cambridge, Australian National University, Stanford, Yale, Columbia, and John Hopkins (“QS Top Universities” n.d.). For more about the differences and similarities between North American and European doctoral graduate programs, refer to Mény (2010) and Ishiyama et al. (2010).

Cambridge University’s Web site states that there are teaching fellows in addition to the full-time faculty; however, it is not clear who these teaching fellows are, that is, doctoral students, postdoctoral students, visiting professors, etc. (Department of Politics and International Studies n.d.).

Serve et al. (2013) even suggest creating a separate degree, Doctorate of Arts, which focuses on SoTL. This proposal incorporates this idea as part of a doctoral student’s comprehensive examination.

Boyer (1997) is an advocate of this approach of combining scholarship and teaching with his typology of the scholarship of discovery, integration, teaching and learning, and application.

The requirement of graduate students having familiarity with all the traditional subfields in political science is one the recommendations of the 2004 APSA Task Force Committee on Graduate Education: “[A] serious graduate education includes a broadly informed perspective on the discipline” (Beltran et al. 2005 p. 4).

Some innovative mentoring systems for teacher training and greater evaluation and supervision of graduate instructors are noted by Ishiyama et al. (2010) at Miami University (Ohio) and Baylor University, innovations that had not placed a strain on the resources of faculty time.

Craig (2014) reviews the literature on teaching and learning in political science and the persistent problem of identifying the aspects that distinguishes political science from other disciplines. By creating a subfield of SoTL, political scientists can address this and other problems in the field.

This claim seems to comport with most political scientists’ perceptions in the discipline; however, data to support this claim in political science are difficult to determine. For academic studies about this phenomenon within academia in general, refer to Warner and Clauset (2015).

The role of professional associations, like APSA, is crucial for determining the expectations and requirements of academic employment and prestige in the discipline (Gaff et al. 2003).