Department of Political Science alumnus Edward West Headington (BA 1998) is a candidate for California Assembly District 38 in the November 6, 2012 Election.�� He was one of the two candidates on the ballot for this office, having placed in the top two in the primary election. Good luck "West"!
Golin-Blaugrund serves Israel through AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee]. Political science senior Bari Golin-Blaugrund was one of six students named to the AIPAC's national council.
USC Dornsife’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fund (SURF) - Political Science major Emily Gee and Lisa Cui examined how Chinese and American students responded to both negative and positive advertisements, including the image depicting an ice cream earth melting in a desert. “During Summer and Fall 2011, the two USC Dornsife students conducted an independent study project at six universities in China and the United States to determine whether culture determines how environmental advertisements are perceived.”
__________________________________________________
May 9, 2012 - The Student Recognition and Wall of Scholars ceremonies took place today and several POSC Seniors received special honors. Listed below are POSC seniors who received an award:
DISCOVERY SCHOLARS - Students who produced exceptional original scholarship while compiling a distinguished overall academic record. Only 11 students received this $10, 000 award; three are POSC majors:
- Lisa Cui
- Emily Gee
- Courtney Whang
Dean Joan Metcalf Schaefer Scholarship:
- Kevin Rutkowski
ORDER OF TROY - Graduating seniors who have demonstrated extraordinary service and leadership to USC and who have also excelled academically:
- Nikki Anas
- Kunal Bambawale
- KeAndra Barlow
- Joseph Dombrosky
- Pany Faed
- Emily Gee
- Andrew Hosea
- Dylan Kornbluth
- Christianna Kyriacou
- Angel Lopez
- Pedro Moura
- Neelam Savla
- Cindy Vuong
- Courtney Whang
We can be proud of these POSC graduating seniors. Thank you if you nominated any of these students or were instrumental in helping them to achieve these awards.
__________________________________________________
March 2012 - Political Science major Andrew Hosea, was one of a few students across the country to be selected as a White House Intern for Spring 2012. Press release.
__________________________________________________
November 2011 - USC Dornsife junior David Horacio Hernandez (double major, Political Science and Ameican Studies and Ethnicity) has been recognized as one of the White House's Champions of Change for his work to improve education for minorities. Details.
__________________________________________________
October 2011 - We are happy to announce that Alex Fullman (Junior majoring in Political Science) has been selected as one of the paid University Fellows for Jewish World Watch, an anti-genocide non-profit based in LA. Alex will be the USC point-person for Congo and Sudan advocacy organizing. Congratulations Alex!
__________________________________________________
After 2 1/2 years at the White House, Gary Lee is leaving to conduct research in Korea via a Fulbright full research grant. His project is to examine the Korean legislature's role in the Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement. He will be based out of Seoul.
Gary joined Obama for America in April 2007, a month before he graduated from USC (BA in Political Science and a minor in Political Organizing in the Digital Age). After working remotely from Los Angeles, he moved to Chicago in June to the campaign headquarters.
While at USC, Gary was involved in various areas of campus life. He served as president of the Korean Student Association, Orientation Advisor and Orientation Coordinator, worked for ITS and was a contributing writer for the Daily Trojan. He was active in APASA, as a representative and board member, and APASS, where he was a member of the leadership council. Additionally, he was a mentor for USC LEAD and the College's Learning Communities program as well as webmaster for the Political Science Department, the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics and the Political Science Undergraduate Association.
__________________________________________________
POSC Sophomore, Jordan Vieira, won first prize in the social sciences category at the 13th annual Undergraduate Symposium for Scholarly and Creative Work. His project "Performance, Sex, and Politics:��Quest for Identity in Southern Uganda" examines how Ugandan women make a space for themselves in their country.
__________________________________________________
POSC Senior, Michelle Lee, was one of the winners of the 2011 Levan Annual Ethics Essay Contest.�� She was the winner in the category of Ethics Across Borders. Her paper is titled "Justice, Ethics, then Peace in Post Transitional Bosnia."
__________________________________________________
SPRING 2011 SENIOR RECOGNITIONS AWARDS CEREMONY
The USC Lambda chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, the POSC National Honor Society, held its Initiation Banquet on April 8, 2011. The following students were formally inducted into Pi Sigma Alpha by the organization's advisor, Paul Kovich:
- Waqas Akmal
- Alia Alinizi
- Krista Ballard
- Catherine Casazza
- German Cash
- James Creech
- Pantea Faed
- Alexander Fullman
- Andrew Hosea
- Dylan Kornbluth
- Christiana Kyriacou
- Won Suk Lee (International Relations)
- Adam Pena
- Mark Pises
- Audrey Son
Election of officers was also held at the banquet.�� The officers elected for 2011-12 are: President - Dylan Kornbluth, Vice President - Waqas Akmal,Officer At-Large - Pantea Faed, Officer At-Large - Alexander Fullman
_______________________________________________________
Political Science undergraduate students Emily Gee and Lisa Cui were recently awarded 4,000 dollars from the Dornsife Student Undergraduate Research Fund (SURF) for their research project. This summer, they will be conducting research on fear-based motivation across cultures by looking at how different cultures respond differently to environmental ads. The aim of the research is to better understand how culture affects what people fear and how that fear can motivate people to act. Lisa and Emily will be traveling to China to conduct their research on Chinese college students in Hangzhou, Suzhou, Beijing, and Changchun as well as surveying college students at USC.
__________________________________________________
POSC Senior, Elizabeth Trower, was one of four students who received an award and presented a paper at the INAUGURAL COLLEGE COMMONS UNDERGRADUATE CONFERENCE held on April 15, 2011 at the Doheny Memorial Library.The conference covered the theme of dehumanization and about our modern assumptions about what it is to be human. Elizabeth's paper was entitled "Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The Forgotten Memory of the 1918 Flu."
__________________________________________________
Monika Langarica, POSC and AMST double major, has been selected to receive a 2011 Phi Kappa Phi Student Recognition Award. She is the only undergrad at USC to be honored. The award will be presented at the 30th Annual Academic Honors Convocation on April 5, 2011, 5 pm at Town and Gown. The selection committee found her work particularly praiseworthy from among the large number of submissions received. Monika's paper is entitled "School Counselors and Policy Mediation: Understanding and Affecting Urban Student Outcomes."
__________________________________________________
Political Science major and Pi Sigma Alpha Honor Society member Michelle Lee has recently been selected as one of 12 members of the 2011 Delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The month-long summer program will to review the rippling effects of the 1995 peace agreement that ended the Bosnian War. The sponsoring program, Global Youth Connect Center for Peacebuilding, is dedicated to protecting basic freedoms. Congratulations Michelle.
__________________________________________________
Monika Langarica and Jonathan Truong (Political Science majors and USC McNair Scholars) were accepted to present their research at the 2011 Eastern Sociological Society meeting being held February 24-27, 2011 at the Sheraton Society Hill in Philadelphia. Both will receive some funding for the travel expenses from the McNair program.
__________________________________________________
Governor Martin O’Malley, Lieutenant Governor Anthony G. Brown, and Secretary of State John P. McDonough for the State of Maryland honored Mr. Arin Ghosh (USC '12) with the Governor's Citation 2011 for his excellence in promoting trade and furthering cross cultural understanding through his unrelenting support to further forging US-Indian relations. They look forward to Mr. Ghosh's continued excellence as he advances in building and bridging relations between our two vibrant democracies.
__________________________________________________
Divinity Barkley graduated in May 2008 (Honors in Political Science, Magna Cum Laude) with a double major in Political Science (POSC) and American Studies and Ethnicity, African American Studies (ASAF). Divinity has won one of 20 Glamour Magazine Women of the Year "Amazing Young Women Who Are Already Changing the World" Awards for 2010. She is the second POSC major to have won this award (Pauline Yang was a previous recipient). The Power of Change is an article that chronicles Divinity's many trials and accomplishments.
__________________________________________________
Ken Sofer, a recent graduate, has been awarded a U.S. State Department Critical Language Scholarship, enabling him to study Arabic overseas. The scholarships are made possible through the Council of American Overseas Research Centers and the American Councils for International Education. Sofer has completed Arabic courses at the College, studied abroad at the American University in Cairo, worked in the U.S. Embassy in Cyprus and interned at the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. In June, Sofer will travel to Amman, Jordan, to study the Levantine dialect at the American Center for Oriental Research.
__________________________________________________
Congratulations to Helen Moser, one of our graduating seniors, who has been selected for the highly competitive Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange scholarship (out of 630 applicants nationwide only 75 were chosen).The yearlong, work-study scholarship that begins in July provides education and professional training in Germany. It includes two months of intensive German language training, four months of classroom instruction at a German university and a five-month internship in a student’s field of study.
__________________________________________________
Congratulations to Ashley Ramos on her election to the Empowerment Congress North Area Neighborhood Council for the USC area. In a Daily Trojan article about Ms. Ramos' election, Ashley stated that " . . . she thinks serving on the neighborhood council . . . could be a starting point for her to learn more about city planning and urban development."
__________________________________________________
Christopher Mayer’s paper, “Incentive-Based Compensation Structures in Public Schools,” has been published in A Dialogue on Presidential Challenges and Leadership: Papers of the 2009-2010 Center Fellows, as part of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress Presidential Fellows Program. “ . . . each Fellow is required to research, write, and present an original paper on an issue of the modern Presidency.” The best of these papers are published in the Center’s original anthology. Christopher’s paper is included in Section 4-Domestic Challenges. A true scholar, Christopher also received The Order of Troy (for senior leadership) at the 2010 Senior Recognitions Award ceremony.
__________________________________________________
Jonathan Brebner and Dy Phi have been selected as 2010 Global Fellows Interns. The internship program encourages exploration of international work experience in Asia. Interns will live and work in Asia for eight weeks during the summer. Both Jonathan and Dy will intern in Taipei.
__________________________________________________
Andrea Martinez, an honors student majoring in political science, had her paper “Framing Emotional Appeals in Campaign Communication” published in A Dialogue on Presidential Challenges and Leadership: Papers of the 2008-2009 Center Fellows. She participated in the Presidential Fellows Program for the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress in Washington, DC and her paper was one of a select few chosen for publication. Congratulations!
__________________________________________________
A candid photo of USC (mostly Political Science) students with Senator Dianne Feinstein while attending the Washington, D.C. Semester Program (taken March 11, 2009).