APSA Congressional Fellowship Research Articles

Reflections on the APSA Congressional Fellowship from the Vantage Point of a Non-Academic Career

Reflections on the APSA Congressional Fellowship from the Vantage Point of a Non-Academic Career

Reflections on 65 Years of the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program

Reflections on 65 Years of the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program

2016–2017 APSA Congressional Fellowship Program Office Placements

2016–2017 APSA Congressional Fellowship Program Office Placements

Office Assignments: 2015–2016 APSA Congressional Fellowship Program

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2012–13 APSA Congressional Fellowship Program Office Assignments

Founded in 1953, the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program is the nation's oldest and most prestigious congressional fellowship. More than fifty years later, the program remains devoted to its original objective of expanding knowledge and awareness of Congress. For nine months, select political scientists, journalists, doctors, federal executives and international scholars gain “hands on” understanding of the legislative process by serving on congressional staffs. Through this unique opportunity, the Association enhances public understanding of policy-making and improves the quality of scholarship, teaching and reporting on American national politics. For more information about the program visithttps://www.apsanet.org/cfp. The assignments for 2012–13 are listed below.

A Troika of Fellows

This year was an unusual one for the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program—three fellows were placed with the same congressional office. The fact that three fellows, each with very different backgrounds, were drawn to the Senate Finance Committee, says something about the unique role that the committee plays in congressional policymaking. As one of the “A”s of the four “Super-A” committees, along with Appropriations, Armed Services, and Foreign Relations, the Senate Finance Com-mittee is one of the committee assignments most sought after by Senators. Its vast policy jurisdiction enables members to affect many different parts of the economy, society, and government. In addition to Chairman Baucus, the majority membership of the committee includes chairs of six other committees: Senators John Kerry of Foreign Relations; Jeff Bingaman of Energy and Natural Resources; John D. Rockefeller of Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Debbie Stabenow of Agriculture and Forestry; Kent Conrad of Budget; and Chuck Schumer who serves both as chairman of the Rules Committee and the Democratic Policy and Communications Center. On the minority side, in addition to the ranking member, Senator Orrin Hatch, the panel includes three ranking members of other committees: Senators Chuck Grassley of Judiciary, Olympia Snowe of Small Business, and Mike Enzi of Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. They serve alongside with the Republican Whip Senator Jon Kyl, the Republican Conference Chair John Thune, and the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman John Cornyn of Texas. This concentration of senatorial experience testifies to the importance of the work undertaken by the Finance Committee.

Congressional Fellowship Program Announces 2012–13 Fellows

Founded in 1953, the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program is the nation's oldest and most prestigious congressional fellowship. The program remains devoted to its original objective of expanding knowledge and awareness of Congress. For nine months, select political scientists, journalists, doctors, federal executives, and international scholars gain “hands on” understanding of the legislative process by serving on congressional staffs. Through this opportunity, the association enhances public understanding of policymaking and improves the quality of scholarship, teaching, and reporting on American national politics. For more information, please visit http://www.apsanet.org/content_3031.cfm.

2011-12 APSA Congressional Fellows Office Assignments

Founded in 1953, the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program is the nation's oldest and most prestigious congressional fellowship. More than 50 years later, the program remains devoted to its original objective of expanding knowledge and awareness of Congress. For nine months, select political scientists, journalists, doctors, federal executives, and international scholars gain “hands on” understanding of the legislative process by serving on congressional staffs. Through this unique opportunity, APSA enhances public understanding of policy-making and improves the quality of scholarship, teaching, and reporting on American national politics. For more information visit https://www.apsanet.org/cfp. The assignments for 2011–12 are listed below.

The Center: A Look at the Centennial Center for Political Science & Public Affairs

You could call it serendipity or a mutually felicitous target of opportunity, but the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program and the Centennial Center for Political Science & Public Affairs—now under my and Veronica Jones' direction—found productive common ground in November 2011 that will continue into the programs' future. In addition to physical proximity—the two programs share the same floor at APSA—the similar content areas and background shared by Centennial Scholars and Congressional Fellows Program has overlapped since the center's founding seven years ago. Centennial Center scholars have been routinely invited to participate in any segment of the fellowship's six-week orientation program that was of interest to them. And, over the years, several of the scholars later became congressional fellows.

Sarah J. M. Miskin

It is with a heavy heart that the American Australian Association and APSA Congressional Fellowship announce the passing on Saturday, February 19, 2011, of American Australian Association/APSA Congressional Fellow Sarah Jane Merl Miskin of Canberra, Australia. Her immediate survivors include her husband Ben Miskin. Having battled with cancer which delayed her participation in the class of 2008–09, the cancer went into remission and she joined her 2009–10 class of Congressional Fellows for the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Foreign Affairs Seminar in October 2009. The remission, however, was regrettably short-lived, and she had to return to Australia in January 2010. Throughout this tragic roller-coaster of health, and in the regrettably brief four months of her association with the fellowship, Sarah Miskin displayed a tenacity of spirit, an indomitable optimism, an infectious love of friendship, and a thorough commitment to the fellowship—her legacy includes a standard of excellence as a Fellow which will be hard to match by the generations of Fellows who will follow in her wake. She was the epitome of what can hope for in the international participation in the fellowship.

Congressional Fellowship Program 2010–2011 Office Assignments

Founded in 1953, the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program is the nation's oldest and most prestigious congressional fellowship. More than 50 years later, the program remains devoted to its original objective of expanding knowledge and awareness of Congress.

Congressional Fellowship Program 2009–2010 Office Assignments

Founded in 1953, the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program is the nation's oldest and most prestigious congressional fellowship. More than 50 years later, the program remains devoted to its original objective of expanding knowledge and awareness of Congress. For nine months, select political scientists, journalists, doctors, federal executives, and international scholars gain “hands on” understanding of the legislative process by serving on congressional staffs. Through this unique opportunity, the association enhances public understanding of policymaking and improves the quality of scholarship, teaching, and reporting on American national politics. For more information, please visit http://www.apsanet.org/content_3031.cfm?navID=41. The 2010 office assignments are:

CFP Announces 2008–2009 Fellows

Founded in 1953, the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program is the nation's oldest and most prestigious congressional fellowship. More than 50 years later, the program remains devoted to its original objective of expanding knowledge and awareness of Congress.

The APSA Congressional Fellowship: Value for Faculty from Teaching Colleges and Universities

During its 55-year history, the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program (CFP) has influenced much of the best work written about Congress. Top congressional and legislative scholars like David Mayhew, Alan Rosenthal, David Rohde, Lawrence Dodd, and Barbara Sinclair, to name just a few, were strongly influenced by their experience as legislative fellows on Capitol Hill. To cite the most prominent example, David Mayhew remarked that his fellowship year was integral to his writing of Congress: the Electoral Connection: “Absent my experience as an APSA Congressional Fellow in 1967–1968, there is not the slightest chance I would have conceived or written The Electoral Connection” (quoted in Biggs 2003, 143).

CFP Announces 2007–2008 Fellows

Founded in 1953, the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program is the nation's oldest and most prestigious congressional fellowship. More than fifty years later, the program remains devoted to its original objective of expanding knowledge and awareness of Congress.

APSA Congressional Fellowship Program 2006–2007 Office Assignments

APSA Congressional Fellowship Program 2006–2007 office assignments.

Under-Explored Opportunities: Insights into Applied (vs. Academic) Career Options in American Politics

A great divide between “Ivory Tower” academics and those engaged in applied politics characterizes popular perceptions for those on both sides of this chasm. Yet, after spending a year in Washington, D.C., as part of the APSA's Congressional Fellowship Program, it is evident that there are commonalities as well as differences between these two groups. However, applied career opportunities are rarely investigated by graduate students in political science, who aim instead for a tenured position in academe. According to the most recent data collected by the APSA, only 7 to 13% of Ph.D.s selected a non-academic position or career track during the period from 1990 through 2000, and this trend remained stable during the early part of this decade (Lopez 2003, 836).The author would like to thank Jeff Biggs, director of the Congressional Fellowship Program, and Michael Brintnall of the American Political Science Association. She also thanks Gene Alpert, Stan Bach, Arthur Burris, Beth Fuchs, John Haskell, Scott Keeter, Bill Koetzle, George Kundanis, Celinda Lake, Congressman Dan Lipinski, Thomas Mann, Norm Ornstein, Neil Pinney, John Ratliff, and Ben Scott for their contributions and insights. Those included in this study are not intended to be an exhaustive or representative list of political science Ph.D.s working in applied settings.

APSA Congressional Fellowship Program 2005–2006 Office Assignments

APSA Congressional Fellowship Program 2005–2006 office assignments.

Congressional Endeavor: The Nexus of Political Powers

The APSA Congressional Fellowship is quite a new program in the Middle East. Thanks to a recent partnership between the American Political Science Association and the Fulbright Commission researchers and journalists from different parts of the world have the chance to participate in the distinguished program. Given the fact that such programs are not well known outside the academic field, the Fulbright Commission in Cairo took the initiative to invite more people from different fields. As a journalist working for a leading newspaper in the Arab World, Al-Ahram, the experience of a 10-month focus on the U.S. Congress has thrilled me because the basic knowledge of the U.S. legislative body in the Arab world has been either inaccurate or insufficient.

Congressional Fellowship Program celebrates 50 years with 2002-2003 Class of Fellows

As the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program enters its fiftieth year, it welcomes the 2002-2003 class of fellows, who will join more than 1900 alumni since 1953 in gaining a “hands-on” understanding of Congress. While the fellowship was first founded so that political scientists and journalists could transmit their legislative experiences to the classroom and to the public, it has since expanded to share the benefits of such study to other professional fields. These are represented by the Federal Executive and Foreign Affairs fellows, Robert Wood Johnson health policy fellows, Native American Hatfield fellows, Carl Albert fellows, American Sociological Association fellows, and by the international scholars sponsored by the Senior Fulbright Scholars program, the Asia Foundation, and the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Now half a century old, the Congressional Fellowship Program continues to benefit from the generosity of Congressional Quarterly, Inc., the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and MCI.