This article uses data collected from Google Scholar to identify characteristics of scholars who have chosen to create a Google Scholar profile. Among tenured and tenure-track faculty with full-time appointments in PhD-granting political science departments, we find that only 43.7% have created a profile. However, among R1 faculty, young and early-career faculty are more likely to have Google Scholar profiles than those in older cohorts. Although subfield differences are largely nonexistent, there is a notably low proportion of theory faculty with profiles and a slightly higher proportion with profiles among methodologists. Moreover, within cohorts, those who are highly cited are more likely to have profiles than those who have low citation counts. We conclude by discussing implications of our findings, the increasing usage of Google Scholar and profiles, and the increasing importance of an online presence in the academy.

As faculty members, we rely on academic freedom to protect us as we teach, engage in scholarly research, and live as citizens of a community. The American Association of University Professors is the accepted authority in matters of academic freedom, and its guidelines explain protections in teaching, research, and extramural utterances. This article argues that the characteristics of social media and the concerns of academic institutions about their reputation have created an atmosphere that make extramural utterances more vulnerable and riskier than in the past. Some institutions even monitor the social media postings of faculty members and act on such postings, openly criticizing and even disavowing or punishing them for their utterances. I consider these issues and make a modest proposal that may improve the environment for extramural utterances by faculty members.

How should scholars recognize and respond to the complexities of positionality during the research process? Although there has been much theorizing on the intersectional and context-dependent nature of positionality, there remains a disjuncture between how positionality is understood theoretically and how it is applied. Ignoring the dynamism of positionality in practice has implications for the research process. This article theorizes one means of recognizing and responding to positionality in practice: a posture of “active reflexivity.” It outlines how we can become actively reflexive by adopting a disposition toward both ongoing reflection about our own social location and ongoing reflection on our assumptions regarding others’ perceptions. We then articulate four strategies for doing active reflexivity: recording assumptions around positionality; routinizing and systemizing reflexivity; bringing other actors into the process; and “showing our work” in the publication process.

This article discusses the two most important things that I have learned since taking a full-time position in 2014 at a newer private university in the Balkans: (1) the unique challenges you face when doing research in such a setting; and (2) how to handle the significant cultural differences that you will face in the classroom. This article also offers recommendations for earning the trust of students who will be suspicious of your motivation for teaching in their country. If you can manage these two realities, you will have a much easier time finding personal fulfillment and, ultimately, professional success in your new endeavor. This article focuses primarily on teaching in newer, private institutions known as Foundation Universities in developing countries more than long-established public institutions. However, you most certainly will face issues in these public institutions similar to those at smaller private ones.

The political science math prefresher arose a quarter-century ago and has now spread to many of our discipline’s PhD programs. Incoming students arrive for graduate school a few weeks early for ungraded instruction in math, statistics, and computer science as they relate to political science. The prefresher’s benefits, however, go beyond its technical content: it opens pathways to mastering methods necessary for political science research, facilitates connections among peers, and—perhaps most important—eases the transition to the increasingly collaborative nature of graduate work. The prefresher also shows how faculty across a highly diverse discipline have worked together to train the next generation. We review this program and advance its collaborative aspects by building infrastructure to share teaching content across universities so that separate programs can build on one another’s work and improve all of our programs.

For decades, political and private polling operations have informed about the public’s perceptions regarding a range of topics. In particular, universities (e.g., Marist and Quinnipiac) provide noteworthy research to inform and predict the outcomes of US elections. Yet, what role do our classrooms play in advancing the public opinion polling skills of our students? This article uses experiential learning as a descriptive framework to illustrate how a yearlong, immersive, and student-led public opinion polling experience, the Big Sky Poll, advances students’ social-science and data-fluency skills. Our findings suggest important insights into the future of public opinion polling from the vantage point of a rural Western state, which can be replicated in other academic institutions.

This article modifies the classic “Isle of Ted” simulation to teach students about the collective action problems associated with climate change. Modifications include the introduction of a common-pool resource (i.e., fish) and increased pirate attacks to model rising climate threats and unequal distribution of risk. A return to the Isle of Ted enables a deeper engagement with specific collective action problems of climate change, including the tragedy of the commons and issues of global inequality. This article provides a road map for the incorporation of this modified simulation into active-learning classrooms.

Wikipedia is a powerful tool that reinforces dominant knowledge paradigms, especially those emanating from the Global North. Simultaneously, it has subversive potential to challenge these paradigms, offering a far-reaching platform to voices that have been traditionally marginalized and underserved. Despite this potential, instructors often employ an “abstinence approach” to Wikipedia, telling students to avoid using it in their academic work. This article advocates for active engagement with Wikipedia with the aim of challenging bias resulting from omission or underrepresentation of particular material to develop more diverse, publicly accessible political science content. First, I explain the theoretical objectives of the assignment and describe its structure. Then I reflect on its successes, challenges, and possible modifications.