CWRU Political Science major

bopper
Mon, 11 Apr 2016 14:35:43 +0000

From the Department head:

CWRU’s Dept of Political Science is a small department of outstanding faculty. As a small department in a large research university, we are able to provide distinct advantages to political science students. Similar to elite liberal arts colleges, we offer small classes taught by regular faculty. No class is larger than 40 students (usually our introductory courses), and our average class size is fewer than 20. Our upper-division courses, which are available to all undergraduate students, are taught as seminars. Because our department has few graduate students, our faculty are able to concentrate on undergraduate teaching as well as on their research. All political science majors have faculty members as their academic advisors, who help shape their program of study, and every political science major completes a Senior Capstone Project under the direction of one of our faculty.

Because we are an integral part of a major research university, our faculty are highly accomplished and active scholars who bring their research into their classrooms. In the past eight years, four of our faculty have been Fulbright Scholars (in Canada, France, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom). Thanks to a generous alumni gift, the Department is able to offer undergraduate research assistantships to students who work with faculty mentors to support and learn from faculty research. Our department has links with our colleagues in the School of Law and the Weatherhead School of Management to support our shared interests.

Because we are an urban research university, our students find opportunities to participate in politics, policy, and service not only within the University, but also in our surrounding institutions and in the wider community. Several of these opportunities can be found on our department webpage here. We are especially proud of our Wellman Hill Public Service Internship grants program that funds four or five students each summer to participate in unpaid, public service internships that financial limitations may have otherwise forced them to decline.

We offer extensive information on our departmental website at http://politicalscience.case.edu/; we also have a departmental newsletter that we could send to interested students. The political science major is one of the most popular majors in the College of Arts and Sciences. Our courses enroll no more than 40 students (in our three introductory courses) or than 20 (in our upper-division seminars). Students work one-on-one with a faculty member in POSC396 Senior Capstone. Only faculty teach our students; we have no graduate student instructors.