Information on upcoming courses.
Tentative
Summer 2012 Course Offerings.
NOTE: WE NOW ARE PAST THE DEADLINES TO APPLY FOR Malta, Lobbying, and Community Organizing EXPERIENCES IN 2012.
Malta Research and Education Exchange.
(Pending EU Funding.)
Organized by the University of Cambridge to provide interdisciplinary social
scientific coursework and research on methods, modeling, the EU, economics,
architecture and art. Special use is made of the location in Malta by the
courses in legislatures, elections, multicultural society, historic
preservation, and architecture.
Undergraduates participate in course work at the University of Malta; graduate student do
supervised but independent research in Malta. Arrangements for archival
access, interviews with public officials, or permission to enter restricted
sites should be made through Professor Krassa at least two months in
advance. Contact Professor Krassa for details on this program.
Program runs six weeks, with three additional days in Paris prior to the
beginning of the program for orientation and two days in Cambridge after the program
for debriefing.
Five hours per day, three days per week are spent in classroom work; the
remainder is spent exploring Malta and vicinity. Additional trips may
include Tunis, Sicily, and Libya.
Neighborhood and Community Organizing.
Credit for this course is earned thorough NYU. Non-NYU students should check
with their home institution regarding transferability; University of
Illinois students may request independent study credit. Course is focused on
several research sites in Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, and
Massachusetts. Students learn
the basic theories of community organizing in the first three weeks of
classroom-based work, and then undertake eight weeks of fieldwork.
Grades are based on performance in two quizzes during the first three
weeks, evaluations from fieldwork supervisors, and a final paper submitted
at the end of the semester.
Lobbying Internship.
Paid internship. Students may earn experience and possible course credit by
working with registered lobbyists for Sealand Chemical Corporation, Blue
Cross, British Petroleum, SEAGroup, the Environmental Defense Fund, or the
American Civil Liberties Union between 18 May and 18 August, 2012.
See Professor Krassa by January 25, 2012
if you are interested in applying. University of Illinois students may earn
credit via independent study (PS 490 or PS590 for grad students); students from other universities
should enquire about possibilities for credit through their home university,
the University of Illinois, or the University of Cambridge.
Coming in
(PS 101).
Introduction to American
Government.
A large lecture course supplemented by weekly small group discussions
focusing on the connections between the founding theories of America and the
historical and current practice of democracy in America. Substantial attention is paid
to the success and failures in living up to the founders ideals, and we
spend a lot of time demonstrating that many modern politicians (of all
ideological stripes) fail to understand and follow the ideology that they
claim.
This course is designed for Freshmen Students at the
University of Illinois. Although it is open to all, advanced students are
cautioned that the grade in this class is usually much lower (by an
average 16.25 semester points) for seniors and juniors than it is for
freshmen. Someday we'll do a study to find out why freshmen perform so much
better than upper classmen when taking freshman courses! (I suspect either
it is senioritis or forgetting over time how to answer objective questions
in favor of long, rambling essay questions.)
(PS 331). Electoral Behavior. This is a 35 student
course in political science that focuses on how people behave in elections.
We examine the types of elections; how the type of electoral system affects
citizen satisfaction with government, voting behavior, and attitudes toward
candidates and politics; theories of electoral systems; partisan
identification theory; the Columbia, Michigan, and Rochester school
perspectives on citizen voting patterns; the role of advertising; public
opinion; lobbyists; and campaign professionals (consultants).
(PS 410) Social Ecology Seminar: Neighborhoods and Politics.
Studies how people affect and are affected by the
neighborhood in which they live.
Proposed Courses:
(look for these in AY 2014 if approved)
(PS 451). Civic Leadership. A sequel to PS 450 (Civic Engagement), focusing on how individuals and groups can help stem the decay of civic engagement in American society. Prerequisite: PS 100 or PS 101, PS 450, and three upper division political science classes or graduate standing in a social science discipline at the U of I.
(PS 4xx) Shrinking the City. This course examines the political and social issues in urban downsizing-- whether due to crime, loss of jobs, or suburbanization. Many cities "hollow out" as they lose population to other regions or even the suburbs. Some, like Detroit, MI and Youngstown, OH, have active efforts to relocate people from undesirable, vacant parts of the city to more vibrant portions. Others have no plan. What are the social and political costs and benefits of relocating residents? How should vacant portions of cities be re-purposed and re-used? What does it mean for residents who remain in vacated neighborhoods? What does it mean for city government? And similarly, what does it mean for people and government to relocate people? Finally, are there best use and best practices for downsizing cities. Some cities and regions try to cope with growth. Other cities have the opposite problem. But both must be anticipated and managed in best interests of the residents.