Theme: Forging Paths Toward Justice, Peace, and Earth-Care

Topic: Teaching Undergraduates About U.S. Politics in Fraught Times

Presenter(s): David Menefee-Libey

David Menefee-Libey describes his talk:

I am teaching the common semester-long Introduction to American Politics course this fall at Pomona College, a small private liberal arts college in Southern California. On the face of it, this is unremarkable: I’ve taught the course dozens of times since I started teaching in 1982, early in the years of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, and I’ve been teaching at Pomona since 1989, starting shortly after Tienanmen Square and during the opening of the Berlin Wall. I am used to teaching in the context of a changing world.

This semester feels different to me. Trump’s second term as president has launched a broad assault on American political and social institutions including higher education, and the US seems to be following a path opened up by Turkey, India, Hungary, and other nations sliding toward authoritarianism. The textbook readings on U.S. politics often seem to describe and explain a system that no longer exists or at the very least is under significant strain. During my presentation, I’ll talk about how I am approaching this challenge.

About the Presenter(s)

David Menefee-Libey is the William A. Johnson Professor of American Government and Professor of Politics at Pomona College in Claremont, California, where he has taught since 1989. He earned a BA from St. Olaf College and a PhD from the University of Chicago, both in political science. Before joining the Pomona College faculty, he worked for the Community Renewal Society in Chicago, was a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and worked as a policy researcher for the RAND Corporation. At Pomona, he teaches courses on American politics, public policy analysis, and American political thought. He has won the college’s Wig Distinguished Teaching Award six times, chaired the college’s Politics Department, and has often served as Coordinator of the Program in Public Policy Analysis. In 1999-2000, he was a visiting Fulbright Professor at the University of Limerick in Ireland.