INTRODUCTION
It is once again a privilege to submit my executive director’s report for 2019. APSA has had a very busy year during 2018: we had record attendance at our annual meeting in Boston; we instituted new protocols and policies in regards to preventing sexual harassment; a Special Projects Fund was established and awarded several grants to members of the association to address urgent issues facing the discipline; and we continued to implement an array of initiatives to promote more diversity and inclusion, public engagement, and professional development in the association. APSA has also remained very active in advocating on behalf of the discipline in the public sphere, especially as it pertains to federal policy toward political science and the social sciences in general. It has been a very active year. The following pages provide more in-depth information on these many initiatives.
ANTI-SEXUAL HARASSMENT RESOURCES
APSA has continued to take the lead in developing resources and procedures to address issues of harassment and professional misconduct at APSA meetings and events. APSA’s anti-harassment policy was approved in 2016 and subsequently implementation procedures to address violations of the policy were developed and approved (these policies, along with information on the resources noted below are available at APSA’s website at www.apsanet.org/divresources/sexualharassment). These procedures remained in place at the 2018 APSA Annual Meeting in Boston, and additional resources were made available, including bystander intervention trainings and the new APSA RESPECT campaign, which encourages “professional respect” by and toward all APSA members and APSA Annual Meeting attendees and participants at all times. Also in Boston, an APSA ombuds was again available onsite at the APSA meeting to speak with any meeting attendee on a variety of topics—including, but not limited to—consultation with any meeting attendees who believe that they have experienced any form of harassment, or have concerns about violations of the sexual harassment provisions of the APSA anti-harassment policy while onsite at the APSA Annual Meetings. In addition, APSA is continuing to work with other political science and social science organizations to share and coordinate resources.
Most recently, APSA has launched the new APSA EthicsPoint system, a new incident reporting system for members, meeting attendees and participants, and council members to submit inquiries, grievances, and complaints concerning harassment, professional misconduct, and ethical and whistleblower issues that occur in conjunction with an APSA meeting, conference, or workshop. APSA has launched this new reporting system to supplement and support existing APSA policies and procedures for submitting a grievance and addressing alleged incidences of sexual harassment. APSA EthicsPoint is facilitated through an online reporting portal and a 24/7 telephone hotline staffed by trained professionals. APSA EthicsPoint accepts anonymous and identifiable reports. Designated members of the APSA executive staff, the ethics committee or, in some cases, a third-party investigator, will review submitted reports and follow up with the individual who made the report. APSA EthicsPoint is a resource for political scientists and it has the support of the APSA Council and APSA leadership. Its implementation is part of the APSA RESPECT campaign, which promotes a climate and culture of professional respect.
RBSI ADVISORY COMMITTEE
The Ralph Bunche Summer Institute (RBSI) Advisory Committee, chaired by RBSI Alumna Nadia Brown, has nearly completed its work, in coordination with the APSA Council, APSA leadership, and APSA staff. The committee’s report will assess and make recommendations on the mid and long-term future of the RBSI program, its sustainability and growth, its future format, partnerships, and funding strategies, and the future governance of the Bunche Fund. The RBSI program is one of the most prominent of APSA’s diversity and recruitment programs and is now in its 33rd year. It is an intensive summer program designed to introduce undergraduate students from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups to the world of doctoral study in political science. Each year between 12–20 students attend the RBSI. In addition to completing graduate level coursework, training in research methodology, and professional development sessions, RBSI Scholars participate in an annual graduate school recruitment day that is attended by over 25 political science PhD departments, and top-performing students present their research at the Annual Meeting. (For more information on the RBSI program, visit https://www.apsanet.org/rbsi.)
Presently, the RBSI has been funded by the NSF, Duke University, and APSA, with NSF funding in place through 2018. In early August 2018, program director Dr. Paula D. McClain submitted a proposal to NSF for another three-year cycle of support. To ensure the future stability of the RBSI program, APSA has pursued the Generation to Generation Campaign for the Ralph J. Bunche Fund, a $2.5 million fundraising effort to sustain the RBSI program for future generations of political scientists. Approximately $1.8 million has been raised to date and program alumni, individuals, and institutions are encouraged to pledge their support for diversity and inclusion. This includes a generous donation of $200,000 from Rogers Smith, the current APSA president, and his wife, Mary Summers. APSA looks forward to ensuring the sustainability and growth of the RBSI program through the successful Generation to Generation Campaign for the Ralph J. Bunche Fund and the recommendations and planning of the RBSI Advisory Committee.
INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOPS
APSA’s Department of International Programs has continued to engage with political scientists across the world both through APSA’s International Workshops and through other activities and partnerships with international political science associations. In 2018, APSA was awarded a $365,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to organize a series of annual political science workshops in East and Southeast Asia. The Asia-Pacific Workshops are a multi-year effort to support political science research and networking among early-career scholars across the region. Alongside APSA’s successful Africa and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) programs, the Asia Workshops extend APSA’s engagement with the international political science community and strengthen efforts to support research networks linking US scholars with their colleagues overseas. The APSA Asia-Pacific Workshops involve a series of week-long, residential, political science workshops that connect approximately 26 scholars from East and Southeast Asia and the United States each year, along with post-workshop research grants and other networking opportunities. The Luce Foundation Grant will fund the program for 2019–2020. The program is led by a Steering Committee including Meredith Weiss as chair (SUNY Albany), Soo Yeon Kim (National University of Singapore), Edmund Malesky (Duke University), Jennifer Pan (Stanford University), and Jong-sung You (Gachon University). (Updates and additional information can be found at https://connect.apsanet.org/asia/.)
In 2018, APSA also expanded its programming in the MENA region with several new institutional collaborations. APSA’s programming in the MENA region will continue through 2019 with a grant renewal from Carnegie Corporation of New York, building on four years of successful MENA Workshops. In September 2018, APSA held the first of two workshops focusing on “The Evolving Role of Political Institutions in the Arab World” in Rabat, Morocco. The program was attended by 28 scholars from across the MENA region, Europe, and the US, who then reunited at a follow-up workshop in January 2019 in Tunis. In August 2018, APSA worked together with the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) to support six Arab scholars in attending a Research Development Group at the annual meeting in Boston, MA. In June 2018, APSA collaborated with the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) to support three Arab scholars in attending a four-week ICPSR Summer Program in Ann Arbor, MI. In April 2018, APSA assisted faculty at three different universities (American University in Cairo, Egypt; Birzeit University, Palestine; and Zayed University, UAE) to organize various projects as part of APSA’s effort to partner with departments of political science to support their graduate students and early career faculty.
PUBLICATIONS
APSA’s academic publishing efforts have completed another busy year, as APSA journals have continued to publish cutting-edge, top-notch political science research while planning for leadership transitions and extensions, as well as continued innovation. The APSA publications team has spent 2018 focused on activities that bring APSA journal features and practices up to speed, streamline relationships between APSA journals and the team, and offer new publications and guides that add to APSA’s member benefits and better the profession.
With the new volume year, the team introduced a new cover for the American Political Science Review. For all Cambridge University Press member-wide APSA journals, APSA worked with the Press to move to a First View publication workflow, allowing research to be disseminated faster and further adapting to the changing print landscape of academic publishing. APSA has also introduced an author/coauthor verification form when submitting manuscripts through the Editorial Manager system. The form asks for demographic data that will allow APSA to make better-informed decisions regarding APSA journals. In addition, APSA has introduced one-click access from the MyAPSA dashboard on the organization’s website, allowing members to access all the journals that they subscribe to from one location. As for new publications and guides, the team has been busy revising the APSA Style Manual for Political Science, meant to lead authors through the manuscript preparation and writing process. (The manual, along with a contact form for questions or suggestions, can be found at www.apsanet.org/stylemanual.) In early August 2018, the publications team also published Navigating Political Science: Professional Advancement & Success in the Discipline, a compendium of journal articles published in APSA journals relating to professional advancement topics, including peer review, blogging, fieldwork, and more.
In 2018, APSA also began the search for a new APSR editorial team, which will begin a four-year term starting in June 2020. After soliciting and providing feedback on letters of intent in the fall, the APSR Search Committee accepted proposals through October 31, 2018 for an editor or group of editors to lead APSR. The committee will review the proposals and interview the candidates, and plans to submit a recommendation to the APSA Council in the spring. APSA looks forward to working with the new editorial team to ensure a smooth transition.
TEACHING AND LEARNING
APSA remains strongly committed to providing resources and support for APSA members for their work in the classroom and has continued efforts to integrate these issues into many aspects of APSA programming. In 2018, APSA’s teaching and learning program introduced “TLC at APSA,” a full-day mini-conference focused on teaching and learning at the Annual Meeting. Over 225 people attended the event, which featured workshops, teaching cafés, and track panels focused on civic education, simulations and games, and innovations in the classroom. Survey results show that attendees were overwhelming pleased with the event, with over 83% of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing that TLC at APSA met or exceeded their expectations. APSA looks forward to continuing this as an annual event going forward and is already well into planning for the 2019 TLC at APSA sessions.
APSA also continues to improve and expand its teaching programming in other ways. For example, the association is cosponsoring the first International Teaching & Learning Conference, taking place in Brighton, UK in June 2018 with the Political Studies Association, the British International Studies Association, and the European Consortium for Political Research. Over 100 people from across Europe and the US are scheduled to present. In addition, the Centennial Center Teaching & Learning Symposia kicked off in 2018 with the first one focusing on teaching political theory. Building off of early teaching workshops, these three-day events held at APSA headquarters in DC bring together 15–20 content and teaching experts to produce concrete teaching resources on timely political issues, as well as state-of-the-discipline summary articles for the Journal of Political Science Education. For a third year in a row, APSA’s teaching and learning program offered a pedagogy workshop at the annual meeting, which helps graduate students and junior faculty improve their teaching portfolios and tenure files. APSA also continues to support excellence in teaching through multiple teaching awards, including the Distinguished Teaching Award and the CQ Press Teaching Award. Finally, APSA continues to improve and expand upon its online teaching resources, which currently include the Syllabi Project, the Political Science Club Guide, and a list of resources related to civic engagement and education. (These resources are available at www.apsanet.org/programs/teaching.)
APSA 114TH ANNUAL MEETING
In 2018, the APSA Annual Meeting brought together more than 7,000 political scientists, surpassing the last seven years of attendance numbers, and featured more than 1,200 panel sessions. The 114th Annual Meeting convened in Boston, MA, kicking off with short courses on Wednesday, August 29, followed by conference panels on Thursday through Sunday related to the conference theme, “Democracy and Its Discontents.”
In addition to the successful TLC at APSA program, the annual meeting featured new and exciting programming including the APSA Diversity & Inclusion Hackathon, seven mini-conferences spanning a variety of topics and divisions, and four research or teaching cafés. The APSA Diversity & Inclusion Hackathon was hosted by the APSA Presidential Taskforce on Women’s Advancement and was chaired by Mala Htun and Alvin B. Tillery, Jr. Teams gathered to develop strategies to overcome challenges and create plans to move forward. (Team outcomes and testimonials can be found at connect.apsanet.org/hackathon.) We look forward to another successful APSA Annual Meeting August 29–September 1, 2019, in Washington, DC, to address the latest scholarship in political science while exploring the 2019 theme, “Populism and Privilege.”
APSA SPECIAL PROJECTS FUND
In 2018, APSA launched the Special Projects Fund, administered by the Centennial Center. The fund provided grants of up to $25,000 for ten collaborative projects aimed at advancing the discipline. The Special Projects Fund awards recognize an exceptional group of established and early career scholars, and supports projects focusing on a wide variety of topics, including climate justice, sexual discrimination and harassment, and the cross-national study of race in the Americas.
Two of the Special Projects Fund efforts launched their work at the 2018 APSA Annual Meeting in Boston, to great effect. The APSA Latino Caucus’s “Looking Back and Moving Forward” workshop celebrated the Caucus’s 20th anniversary with a full day of panels and an evening awards ceremony. The Women’s Caucus for Political Science held the #MeTooPoliSci short course, which brought together a diverse group of scholars to address gender discrimination and sexual harassment in political science. Their Special Projects grant will also enable them to build on their efforts through regional conference workshops, seed grants for departments, and the development of a set of best practices for combatting gender discrimination and sexual harassment. APSA plans to continue to offer special projects grants periodically in the future.
NEW APSA STAFF
In 2018, APSA has been excited to welcome new staff members to help support our programs and mission. Janna Deitz joined us as Senior Director of Academic & Professional Development and Congressional Fellowship Program, overseeing teaching and learning programming, developing public engagement initiatives, and directing the Congressional Fellowship Program. Tanya Schwarz joined APSA in 2018 as Associate Director of Academic and Professional Development, and manages APSA’s programs in teaching and learning, professional development, and departmental services. Before joining APSA, Schwarz was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Hollins University. Amanda Grigg now serves as the Associate Director of the Centennial Center for Political Science and Public Affairs, leading all aspects of the Centennial Center mission, operations, and program development, including Centennial Center research grants, Visiting Scholar and Pracademic Fellowship Programs, and teaching workshops in Washington, DC. Prior to joining APSA, she taught in the political science department at the University of Michigan, where she worked closely with first-generation student programs.
APSA also welcomed a new Finance Director, Larry Burner, who oversees APSA’s finance and administration team, along with a new Executive Assistant and Operations Administrator, Tim Perkins, who is responsible for building maintenance, securing contractors, and supporting the Executive Director with his work. The APSA membership team was joined by Kristy Silva, who assists with member issues and inquiries and helps produce reports on membership trends. Finally, Clarissa Westphal Nogueira was hired as a Communications & Web Services Specialist, serving as technical support to staff and members, providing web and database maintenance for the APSA website and related pages.
CONCLUSION
APSA, as an association, is very fortunate to have many, many members who devote time and resources in support of APSA’s extensive programming including the annual meeting and its publications. I look forward to working with our members in 2019, as we continue to develop programs to support the research and pedagogical interests of our members as well as their professional development and engagement in the public sphere. We also have an obligation to promote best practices for the discipline and other associations across our many programs and policies.
