Political Science
The political science program in the Honors Tutorial College is a particularly important part of our mission, and we have been proud to see our graduates go on to the top graduate programs in the world. Whether the future career is law, teaching, governing, political consulting, or some other related field, we feel that the program in political science along with the broader liberal arts orientation of the college offers our HTC students a particularly good start.
The program is designed around the belief that our HTC students, as talented and mature people, should enjoy freedom to explore the issues and possibilities of the field. Therefore, with the exception of asking students to accomplish the equivalent of two years of study in a foreign language, take eight tutorials in the field, and write the Honors Thesis, and complete the general Honors Tutorial College requirements, we encourage them to work with the director of studies to develop a personalized program of study.
Program Overview
Tutorial Requirements
The core of the program is eight semester-long tutorials, one taken each semester. The undergraduate program in Political Science includes courses in American Politics, International Relations, Political Theory, Law & Politics, and Comparative Politics.
Two senior-level tutorials are specifically designated "research tutorials" in which a student enrolls for the purpose of researching and writing the required senior thesis. This thesis is written under the supervision of a member of the Political Science Department faculty. All tutorials, including the "research tutorials," are courses in which the student meets with the tutor on a one-to-one or small group basis. The tutorial is a weekly meeting lasting one hour.
The strength of the tutorial program in Political Science is the one-to-one or paired tutorial format. This approach facilitates the acquisition of verbal as well as written skills due to the intensive attention devoted to each tutorial student by the tutor. The student is expected to demonstrate knowledge of weekly assignments through papers, oral reports, or such other projects as may be designated by the tutor. This provides invaluable experience in research, writing and oral presentation.
Collateral Courses
The balance of the student's course work is taken in regularly scheduled courses selected in consultation with the director of studies. We also require our tutorial students to complete a minimum of two years of a foreign language. The Department of Political Science feels that language skills are an important component of a student's undergraduate education in political science. With the flexibility available, the tutorial program offers the student the opportunity to design a curriculum specifically tailored to the needs and interests of the individual. The only constraint is that the student's curriculum must have the approval of the tutorial director.
Internships
The Department of Political Science coordinates the public affairs internship program for undergraduate and graduate students. The program includes local, state and federal agencies and private organizations. Internship opportunities are available in such offices as the Vice President of the United States, Amnesty International, the mayor of Athens, the city law director, the Ohio State Senate, the Ohio House of Representatives, and other groups and agencies. The goal of the program is to provide students with supervised practical experience relevant to their academic and career objectives.
Eligibility
Applicants are selected on the basis of superior academic ability and the potential for self-motivated undergraduate study and research.
Director of Studies
Dr. Kathleen Sullivan
Professor of Political Science
Bentley Annex 233
rossa@ohio.edu
Education
Ph.D., University of Texas-Austin, 2002
Research Areas
- Public Law
- American Political Development
About Dr. Sullivan
Kathleen Sullivan is the author of Constitutional Contest: Women and Rights Discourse in Nineteenth-Century America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). She has publications in Studies in American Political Development, in Race and American Political Development Lowndes et al., ed. (Routledge, 2008), and in Feminist Interpretations of Tocqueville, Locke and Bunting, ed. (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009).
With Patricia Strach, she addressed the use of family in governance, which won the Pi Sigma Alpha Award from the Western Political Science Association and is available in Political Research Quarterly. Their co-authored work has also appeared in The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion ed. Ericson (Routledge, 2011) and Doing Archival Research in Political Science Frisch et al., ed. (Cambria, 2012). Strach and Sullivan are currently engaged in a long-term project on municipal garbage collection practices in the Progressive Era. With Carol Nackenoff, she is researching the establishment of juvenile courts in the Progressive Era. Both of these studies appear in Statebuilding at the Margins, Nackenoff and Novkov, ed. (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014).
Dr. Sullivan received her Ph.D. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin, her M.A. from the University of Toronto, and her B.A. from Colgate University.