According to the political science department website, “political science students at Ohio get to explore the politics of yesterday, today and tomorrow with renowned faculty.” In an election year, the politics of today and tomorrow are especially intriguing subjects of classroom debate.
Ayshni Tandon, a senior studying political science pre-law, is currently enrolled in POLS 4010 American Constitutional Law and POLS 3050J Writing on Political Science Topics.
“The content we’re working on in both of them is specific to their own categories, but the election is referenced a lot,” Tandon said. “If we’re learning about a constitutional case, they’ll be like, ‘this is going to be relevant in the coming weeks’ or ‘they were just arguing about this on TV.’”
DeLysa Burnier, a political science professor, has been using the election as a part of her course curriculums throughout the semester.
“I use it more as an example, a way to highlight things,” Burnier said. “I’ve been asking people to talk about the debates and grade them and things like that, but I try to weave it in and incorporate it into the material.”
Tandon believes many professors in the department use the upcoming election to engage their students in the curriculum. One of the ways Tandon interacts with other political science students is through her role as the president of the Political Science Majors Association.
“We’ll have get-togethers to watch the debates, we’re constantly talking about it in our group chats,” Tandon said. “We are nonpartisan so you get a lot of opinions in there, a lot of people correcting each other if you get facts wrong.”
According to Tandon, the department faculty encourage looking at everything through a lens of factual accuracy to allow for political science students to be less polarized compared to non-political science students, despite the broad range of views and opinions present in the group.
“Being a poli-sci major has definitely given me a way more nuanced view than I had before college of the election process, maybe it’s a little more pessimistic of a view,” Tandon said. “I definitely feel better prepared to take on misinformation in an election cycle.”
Burnier believes political science students are at an advantage in an election year due to their pre-existing interest in politics and through their course discussions.
Julie White, a professor of political science, hopes to use this interest within her students to the advantage of their education.
“Most of the students in our department feel pretty comfortable expressing where their political preferences lie with respect to any particular candidate, but I also hope we encourage this climate where, however (students are) voting, (they) don’t think either candidate is getting everything perfectly right,” White said.
This semester, White is instructing two classes in political science: Introduction to Political Theory and Resistance, Reform and Revolution.
According to White, the latter class puts a central focus on answering the following question: “How did we arrive at a point where elections become not just the primary, but for a lot of people the only way they imagine the political?”
“Elections are an important part of our political life, but in the U.S. context (they tend) to eclipse the importance of organizing politically beyond the electoral process,” White said. “So much of what politicians can and can’t do once they’re elected is really a function of the work that is done outside the electoral process.”
White hopes this message encourages students to “put elections in their appropriate space in that (political) terrain” and take note of the civic groups in action after the election itself concludes.
“I think an important part of preparatory work for the election, but also the work post-election, is about reminding people that politics is ongoing,” White said. “It doesn’t end with an election, and whatever happens, there will continue to be political work to be done.”
After the election, Burnier plans to facilitate discussion and review in her classes.
“(Discussion will) give everybody a chance to talk and see what happened, what trends, what differences there are, a way to get a big picture in the short term,” she said.
