The committee has been charged by the Council with exploring possibilities for employment of political scientists outside of universities in the present and future. This assignment is prompted by some historic facts. We can expect to see a 25 percent decline in the number of undergraduate students in the next decade. This means fewer faculty members. If graduate programs continue at their present size during that period, one-half of the Ph.D.s in political science will be employed outside of academic life by the late 1980s.

The discipline could encourage these trends by closing down many graduate programs, keeping the field small and academic, and focusing increasingly on undergraduate teaching. This may happen anyway as prospective graduate students disappear.

As an alternative the discipline could develop new kinds of graduate education which would prepare M.A. and Ph.D. students for professional careers outside academic life.

Editor's Note: The Department of Health, Education and Welfare has prepared amendments to regulations governing research on human subjects. The regulations were established in response to recommendations from the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedicai and Behavioral Research. These regulations are implemented by the institutional review boards established by colleges, universities and research institutes. The intent of the proposed amendments is admirable: to reduce the categories of research coming under federal control and review. But specific amendments could impose restrictions and difficulties upon political scientists conducting research projects or teaching their students to conduct research.

The Association's Council's concerns about the proposed regulations was expressed in this resolution passed on August 30:

Ithiel de Sola Pool has prepared the following analysis of the proposed regulations in order to inform colleagues of their possible impact. Political scientists who share his concerns are invited to write to the Executive Director of the APSA and join in forming a Committee of Concern about Institutional Review Board Practices by writing to: Ithiel de Sola Pool, 105 Irving Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138.

The “Proposed Regulations Amending Basic HEW Policy for Protection of Human Research Subjects” which were published in the Federal Register of Tuesday, August 14, 1979, represent a substantial improvement over previous rules and draft rules, but are still grossly improper and unconstitutional.

Although the Mershon Center was formally established by The Ohio State University Trustees in 1967, it is necessary and accurate to add that its origins can be traced back to 1954 when the will of Colonel Ralph D. Mershon, an alumnus, was probated. That document provided that not less than 50 percent of the income from the bequest be spent for the promotion of activities that can be said to fall within the area of national security.

Following a period of years during which a university-wide faculty committee administered the funds made available from the restricted endowment income, the Trustees approved what amounted in essence to a social science program of national security studies to be administered by a director. The late Edgar S. Furniss, Jr., came from Princeton in 1963 to conceive and implement the new program. Until his untimely death in 1966, Furniss' extremely effective leadership made possible a series of faculty appointments, doctoral fellowships, widely heralded international conferences, and high quality, scholarly publications whose enduring relevance and impact are plainly visible years later.