The recent growth in policy studies curricula in political science departments affords increased opportunities for experimentation with alternative instruction modes. This article describes one innovation found to be appropriate for courses for which the instructor has access to experts in the policy being studied. In this example, community experts in health policy issues were used as resource persons to assist in discussion of specific health policy concerns. Other policy courses should be amenable to this format, including energy, environment, and economic development courses. Even without using community experts, the general format of weekly colloquiums could be replicated for other policy courses.

The courses described herein is an upper division/graduate level course in American Health Policy. It is taught for one semester every other year as one of several topical courses in the public policy track within political science.

One continuing source of frustration in public policy and mangement education is the relative paucity of materials in empirical inquiry. Typically, instructors must borrow and adapt instructional materials originally developed for use in other fields (e.g., Political Science, Sociology). While many of these texts, laboratory manuals and other instructional resources are of excellent quality, they often are only marginally related to public policy and management concerns. Learning for skillbuilding in empirical inquiry is not content-free, however, and students frequently have difficulty applying concepts and techniques covered in these instructional materials to their own field of study—the linkages may not be readily apparent.

The problem is particularly acute when one is trying to provide students with relevant "hands on" experience in applying various analytic methods to actual data for public policy and management decision-making.

As a veteran gypsy scholar who has done time in seven or eight institutions of higher learning, I thought I had seen it all. But once again, I was wrong. This time it was not a question of teaching per se — as in the university where I was ordered to teach Texas Politics within two weeks of entering the state. Now it was just a little thing: the chalk-holders on the blackboards were usually empty.

For a teacher, the situation was irritating. The standard operating procedure was to ask the departmental secretary for a piece of chalk—two if you insisted. You were then supposed to take the chalk with you from class to class because, I was told, it would disappear if you left it in the room.

The further removed we are from World War II the more difficult it is to teach about fascism. It is difficult enough for those who went through the war to understand the rise of fascism, its appeal to the masses and to the business community, the ideology behind it and what conditions may have led to its rise. But now we face students born after World War II whose knowledge of fascism may be limited to the caricatures presented in “ B “ war movies.

In fact, today's students probably know more about fascism through films than all other learning sources combined. But is this film image accurate? And, how might we better teach about fascism by using films?

There are several characteristics of fascism which can be brought out to students through film.

No branch of the American system of government has been at once less understood and more misunderstood than the judiciary. Yet it may well be argued — and I propose to do so — that the so-called “least dangerous branch” (Hamilton's half-truth) is, in the final analysis, the most powerful of the three in its impact upon the nature and character of our constitutional law. Notwithstanding rampant, and indubitably often justified, criticism, it is also seen by the public as both the most trustworthy and the most professional of the three. And incidentally — or not so incidentally — it also ranks high, indeed, in that perception among all visible public and private groups, with Congress consistently bringing up the rear, outranked in the booby realm only by lawyers (what delicious irony!) and labor unions.

Although plans are well underway for celebrating the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution in 1987, it is doubtful that many of the public will be aware — or if aware would care to celebrate — a centennial milestone in the history of American government that teachers of political science will recognize as having great importance for American constitutionalism. I refer to what may be described, with some historical license, as the birth of the administrative state. This event was announced by the publication in 1887 of Woodrow Wilson's famous essay, “The Study of Administration,” and by the creation in the same year of the Interstate Commerce Commission, the prototype of the independent regulatory agencies that were to affect so profoundly the nature of American government in the twentieth century.

For some time now, physical anthropologists have been disengaging themselves from the use of race as an objective characteristic of humankind. But historians, and especially historians of the United States, must continue to deal with race as a subjective reality — that is, with the idea or consciousness of race as a social force. Of course racial distinctions are never entirely free from cultural connections. Thus Africans brought in chains to colonial America were regarded as ideally fitted for servitude, not only because of their perceived physical characteristics (including intellect and disposition) but also because they were viewed as heathens and savages. Conversely, ethnocultural distinctions may have strong racial overtones, such as in the image and identity of twentieth-century Hispanic-Americans.

During the week of June 20, 1983 twenty-five historians and political scientists gathered for a seminar concerning “The Constitution and Black America.” Most of the participating faculty were very positive in their evaluations of the program; many, in fact, stated that its usefulness exceeded their expectations.

The location of the seminar at Atlanta University, in Georgia was described by one of the participants as “perfect” in light of the themes which were to be discussed. The university and the city provided both an appropriate environment and relevant resources for the faculty who attended.

The Atlanta University complex has a rich history of contributions to the black community and possesses a repository of special collections concerning black history and the quest for equality.

This article describes an exercise in political decisionmaking for use in introductory political science courses. Based upon participatory democratic theory, the exercise is a covert simulation project aimed at providing students with an experiential understanding of the political decisionmaking process. This activity is useful for exposing the latent political structure which underscores most social settings and for allowing a clear analysis of the exercise of power in a small, educational arena; the simulation provides a unique opportunity for combining subject matter and pedagogical technique.

The procedure will be described in some detail, the initial results generated are discussed, the topics related to the experience later in the course are examined, and suggestions for instructor preparation are made. This procedure has been successfully used in undergraduate classes of Introduction to American Government and in Introduction to Political Science over a five year period.