By Abby Black
Political Science majors and now have what other departments have had for some time: the opportunity to publish their work through a scholarly journal.
Junior Bradford Williamson came up with the idea of a University of Portland political science journal last year under the direction of political science professor Lauretta Frederking. Williamson and Frederking worked together to put together the University of Portland chapter of the Roosevelt Institution to give students an outlet for their scholarly writing focusing on topics such as economic policy, human rights, international development, poverty and social justice, and urban policy.
The idea is being modeled after the Roosevelt Institution's national organization's publication, "25 Great Ideas." The journal will focus on a particular topic for the each issue.
The club is being sponsored by the Roosevelt Institution of Portland, a non-profit, non-partisan national network of campus-based student think-tanks. Its members conduct policy research on the pressing political issues facing our world, from environmental protection to equality under the law to trade and taxes.
The Roosevelt Institution connects the fruits of that research to the policy process, delivering sound, progressive proposals to policy makers and advocacy groups at all levels of government as it organizes, trains and empowers the next generation of progressive leaders.
For UP students, they are offering $100 for the winner of an essay that will be reviewed by the editorial board and published in the journal. The goal of the club is to publish an issue every semester with the hope that this journal will be the link to discussions between students and policy makers on what they hope to become a national level.
Williamson has also asked some political science professors to include writing for the journal an option on next year's syllabus.
Williamson said that his main goal is to "educate and empower students in the policy-making process." The group of professors helping the students contributes to the club's growing confidence.
The club president, senior Jordan Heim, has similar goals.
"We are especially striving to attract students not typically interested in politics," Heim said. "We realize politics can be ugly, but policy should not be the exclusive purview of political science majors."
The plan is to create a product and present it to the school or other institutions or companies that might fund the endeavor. Eventually, the goal is to offer other schools in the Northwest such as Reed, Portland State and Lewis and Clark, a chance to write in the journal.
As president, Heim has worked on tasks from building the membership of the club to coordinating schedules. He is very excited about the potential of the publication and sees the publication as an opportunity for his generation to get involved.
"As a generation we are often criticized, rightly, for not taking an active role in society," Heim said.
"It seems silly that a group like students with such a huge stake in the decisions now being made should exclude themselves from the process," Heim said.
