Like many other teachers, I have found that the way in which course requirements are structured has a significant influence on the learning outcomes of a course. In particular, I have found that the standard mixture of exams and term papers is often simply not the most effective way to encourage learning and stimulate critical thinking. There are several different types of alternatives to the exam/term paper format which I have tried and which have had positive results. Exams and traditional term papers certainly have their place and I use them in certain cases, but there are also other possibilities which provide a better opportunity (and a more effective “prod“) to encourage independent critical thinking.

Acrimonious and seemingly interminable debates have surrounded the introduction and dissemination of systematic empirical methods in political science. Nevertheless, for better or worse, these methods and this mode of analysis are here to stay in political science and the other social science disciplines. No one can deny the general leaning towards behavioralism that is evident in the programs of the major PH.D. granting institutions. Scholars may debate the ultimate validity of these approaches for understanding politics, but all must agree that a thorough understanding of today's social science requires at least some familiarity with the behavioral approach, even if this familiarity were to be conceived of as “self defense” in the struggle to keep up with the literature in the major journals, and even if that familiarity were to breed contempt.

As recently reported in The chronicle of Higher Education (January 7, 1980), enrollment in colleges and universities is expected to decline about 4 percent during the 1980s. This decline in student enrollment, which may exceed 40 percent in some states, will be one of the major problems facing higher education during this decade.

Currently the bulk of political science enrollment of most colleges and universities is in introductory courses. These courses are primarily composed of students majoring in other disciplines who are taking an introductory political science course (usually the introductory course in American Politics) to fulfill a degree requirement. Most of these “service” students take no additional political science courses. As a result, the “continuation scores” — the number of additional political science courses taken — of most introductory course students are very low.

In the history of what is now the United States, Florida holds a preeminent position. The Florida peninsula was explored by Spaniard Ponce de Leon in 1513. Pensacola Bay is the site of the first European settlement in the nation in 1559. Six years later, Pedro Menendez de Aviles founded St. Augustine, the country's oldest city in continuous existence. The French came into the area in 1564 and the British in 1586. All of this activity was prior to the Virginia and Massachusetts English settlements in the early part of the next century. Florida, however, did not become a territory of the United States until 1821 when it was acquired from Spain. It became a state in 1845.

California. The most populous state in the Union, the third largest in area, with a gross product that surpasses that of any other state and all but a handful of countries in the world. Stretching almost 900 miles from the Mexican border to the Oregon state line, this Golden State contains within its 100 million acres a varied landscape of coastline, foothills, mountains, valleys, and deserts. From the northern foothills came the gold that sparked the early and raucous growth of the state, and from the fertile land of the Great Central Valley comes the agricultural products that constitute the foundation of its present wealth. Along its vast coast line, especially in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area, resides over ninety percent of the population.

Maine has a well established institutional arrangement for maintaining and distributing state documents and records. Government documents in Maine are located in three major libraries — the Maine State Library, the Maine State Archives, and the Maine State Law and Legislative Reference Library.

The state library and state archives are located in the State of Maine Cultural Building within walking distance of the State House in Augusta. The state library is the principal depository for all state documents. State departments are required by law to submit copies of their publications to the state library which then distributes copies to thirteen dispository libraries throughout the state. These depositories include libraries on campuses throughout the University of Maine System (Orono, Fort Kent, Machias, Presque Isle, Farmington, Gorham, and Portland) as well as libraries of three of Maine's private colleges (Bates, Bowdoin, and Colby), the Portland Public Library and the State Law and Legislative Reference Library.

According to various studies of political socialization, only the immediate family may have more impact upon the development of the child's political values and partisan allegiances than the school system. And in the areas of citizenship education and patriotic inculcations the school is usually defined as the primary facilitator. Because citizenship education is considered to be indoctrinational, value laden, and non-neutral, it has generated considerable controversy. Some consider citizenship education to be a vital function of the schools, while others feel it should not receive particular attention.

Concerted efforts by education theorists and educational associations to define the proper role and objectives of citizenship education span the twentieth century.