My current research focuses on: (1) undergraduate political science curriculum reform. With several political scientists, I was co-PI for an APSA Special Projects grant to hold a national conference on rethinking the undergraduate political science major in Denton TX in June 2019. Papers from the conference, including one of mine, are in the April 2021 issue of PS: Political Science & Politics.
(2) the effects of high-impact practices (HIPs)(undergraduate research, internships, service-learning, study abroad, etc.) on student learning and success. Using national and Elizabethtown NSSE data on HIPs from the past decade, Dr. Kyle Kopko, Kayla Gruber ’18, and I presented research at the American Political Science Association Teaching and Learning Conference in Baltimore, February 2018 and had the paper published online January 2021 in the Journal of Political Science Education.
The political science faculty and I enjoy involving students in our research. The 2015 New England Journal of Political Science article on the Presidential Medal of Freedom (http://www.nepsanet.org/#!current-issue/c1pe0) was co-authored with two students, Julia Ward and Jillian Casey. They originally presented the manuscript at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association in Orlando. The department and the College provide funding to support independent student research, as well as collaborative efforts with faculty.