Hi!
My name is Matt Streb and I’m Chair of the
Political Science department.
The fall of 2012 is a really exciting time
in the Political Science department because
we have a presidential election.
Obviously, those come along once every four
years, and so my colleagues and I are very
excited about teaching several election-related
courses in the fall.
We have four different courses in particular
that will deal with various aspects of presidential
elections.
We have a course devoted solely to presidential
elections, it will be taught by Dr. Art Ward,
that will look at how presidential elections
have evolved over time.
We’ve got a course that will be taught on
the presidency by Dr. Mitch Pickerill that
will talk about the role of the president,
what the president can do, and how the outcome
of this election can affect future policy.
I’m teaching a course on parties in elections,
and in that course we do a variety of things:
we’ll look at voter turnout, we’ll look
at why we have two parties and whether we
should have more options when we go to the
polls.
We’ll also spend some time looking at presidential
elections in that class.
And then we’ll have a course on American
public opinion.
You know, every day we go by and there are
people who poll all sorts of different questions:
on policy, on who’s winning, on who’s
losing; and in that class you’ll learn how
those polls are conducted and whether they
actually tell us something.
Are they accurate, or not?
So we certainly hope that you’ll consider
taking one of these courses in the fall, and
again my colleagues and I are very excited
to have you in one of our classes.
