Because political science draws heavily from other disciplines—psychology and economics—in its use of experimental methods, we often fail to note how each experimental tradition developed in ways, while serving those field's primary goals, that often present contradictory imperatives that may not serve political science equally well. I provide a brief history of experimental traditions in psychology and economics, and then suggest, in all humility, an integrated set of best practices for the use of experiments in political science.

In our efforts to make blogging an acceptable component of an academic career in political science, we ought not tame the practice of blogging beyond recognition. Multiple models exist under which blogging can contribute to the discipline of political science and through which political scientists can contribute to the public sphere.

The American system of higher education is under attack by political, economic, and educational forces that threaten to undermine its business model, governmental support, and operating mission. The potential changes are considerably more dramatic and disruptive than anything previously experienced. Traditional colleges and universities urgently need a coherent, thought-out response. Their central role in fostering the creation, preservation, and distribution of knowledge in the world may be at risk and, as a consequence, so too may be the spectacular progress across fields we have come to expect as a result.

John Aldrich is a positive scientist—in both the scholastic and colloquial sense. A progeny of the Rochester school, Aldrich's research displays a commitment to the tenets of positive political theory. He derives internally consistent propositions and subjects those claims to empirical testing, all in an attempt to explain scientifically phenomena and institutions at the heart of democratic theory. As a mentor and builder of academic institutions, Aldrich has shown unswerving kindness, modesty, and a commitment to foster new generations of political scientists. He is a positive influence on his students, his colleagues, and the political science discipline at large.

Each year, PS editorial staff provides a report of activities to the APSA Publications Committee and the APSA Council, and usually we report on a few items in that report to our readers. Below we offer highlights and a summary of the results of the 2012 PS Reader Survey. In addition, because articles in PS are peer-reviewed, we take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of the reviewers who offered their time and service to PS and the profession. Their names and affiliations are listed at the end of this report.

The style of writing in international relations (IR) has evolved in recent decades. The lessons of “vintage” IR, to which we return in this article, have been largely forgotten by those writing in the discipline today. A merit will be substantial, we argue, in drawing more heavily from works by previous masters. Several lessons in style follow.

The American system of higher education appears poised for disruptive change of potentially historic proportions due to massive new political, economic, and educational forces that threaten to undermine its business model, governmental support, and operating mission. These forces include dramatic new types of economic competition, difficulties in growing revenue streams as we had in the past, relative declines in philanthropic and government support, actual and likely future political attacks on universities, and some outdated methods of teaching and learning that have been unchanged for hundreds of years.

The 2012 congressional redistricting was the first for which census data and mapmaking software were available to and easily useable by undergraduate students. We discuss our experience teaching the redistricting process to undergraduates and having our students draw constitutionally and statutorily valid congressional districts for Massachusetts. Bringing students into the process is a valuable teaching tool, and it also provides unbiased redistricting scenarios to state legislators and makes the redistricting process more open and transparent. Perhaps contrary to the fears of some legislators, our students placed substantial value on incumbency and the preservation of existing district lines, along with a respect for the traditional redistricting concerns of communities of interest and compactness.

Chin up; chest out; don't panic, yet. Yes, we who work in universities do face epic challenges described eloquently by King and Sen. Yes, we have indeed mostly ignored these—or rather have tended to wring our hands and wail operatically before planting our heads deeply in the sand. We will certainly experience massive technological disruptions of our traditional modus operandi and have only dim notions about how to respond to these. And all of us, if we are brutally honest, are deeply complicit in contributing to an unsustainably rising cost curve that, unchecked, will blow apart the very system that currently sustains our comfortable lives. These sorry truths are self-evident.

The APSA Task Force on Electoral Rules and Democratic Governance has published its report, Political Science, Electoral Rules, and Democratic Governance, edited by Mala Htun and G. Bingham Powell, Jr.

How can we make international relations real and meaningful for undergraduates? Because of my own frustration with this challenge, I tried a new way of teaching international relations. During the fall 2009 semester, the final exam for an upper-division course required the students to create and conduct a simulation to teach other students about international political institutions. I willingly gave up control of my classroom to the students!

Social networking sites have recently garnered academic attention for their role in fostering democracy and openness in both developed and developing regions. Unfortunately, in political science, this newfound interest has not yet translated into a greater interest in social media as a methodological tool for researchers conducting fieldwork. How has the era of social media influenced the way political scientists conduct their fieldwork? How can researchers make the most of the opportunities offered by social networking sites while abiding by the strict standards of their ethics board? This article highlights the potential in social networking sites for recruiting participants and gathering data and looks at the impact sites such as Facebook have had on building and maintaining trust with research participants. In contrast, it explores how social media may compromise one's ability to uphold the “do no harm” principle guiding all academic research by jeopardizing participants' confidentiality and anonymity, a risk deemed especially high for vulnerable populations or sensitive regions. Insight gleaned from the researcher's own fieldwork in two minority provinces of Indonesia in 2010–2011 is used as a case in point.

Politics, economics, and technology have conspired to make this an exceptionally challenging time for American higher education. Some critics claim that costs are out of control in traditional public and private nonprofit higher education. They believe these institutions will soon go the way of the railroads as for-profit institutions displace them and the Internet replaces college campuses and classrooms. Other critics bemoan the privatization of higher education and the increasing role of market forces. Still others think higher education has lost its way and fails to focus on educating undergraduates.

We marshal discoveries about human behavior and learning from social science research and show how these can be used to improve teaching and learning. The discoveries are easily stated as three social science generalizations: (1) social connections motivate, (2) teaching teaches the teacher, and (3) instant feedback improves learning. We show how to apply these generalizations via innovations in modern information technology inside, outside, and across university classrooms. We also give concrete examples of these ideas from innovations we have experimented with in our own teaching.

Using a role-playing simulation on government formation with pre- and posttest assessment format, I show that students developed a significantly greater capacity for precision and specificity in their answers about the process of coalition government formation in parliamentary systems; students changed their beliefs in the ability of institutional rules to causally affect the process of coalition government formation in parliamentary systems; and, finally, students, changed their views on whether office-seeking politicians are more successful than policy-seeking politicians in forming coalition governments in parliamentary systems.

Disruptive change is never easy for those who have helped construct the status quo. By definition, it undermines much that we take for granted and rely on, much that has evolved over time. It sometimes destroys things that are worth treasuring. This is why we fear it. But disruptive change also provides an opportunity for restructuring that can actually improve our institutions. Our task should be to adjust as nimbly as we can, taking advantage of new opportunities while we protect those aspects of traditional higher education that are of the greatest importance to our mission.

As the United States Congress began its 113th session, 72 freshman members arrived on Capitol Hill to represent their congressional districts for the first time. It would be universally heralded as the most diverse freshman class in history, containing four new African Americans, 10 new Latinos, five new Asian Americans, 24 new women, the first two Hindus, the first Buddhist, the first non-theist to openly acknowledge her belief prior to getting elected, and four new LGBT members, including the first openly bisexual congresswomen and the first openly gay congressman of color. But for all their diversity, each of them had at least one thing in common: none of them had ever been a member of Congress before. How do freshman policy-makers legislate? What unique challenges do they face? What accounts for variations in their legislative activity?

The American Academy in Berlin, Germany's Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Study), and other prestigious scholarly institutions in Germany recently hosted a symposium in honor of Donald P. Kommers, Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science and professor of law emeritus at the University of Notre Dame and a long-time APSA member.

This article describes the development of an innovative teaching method to help political science students deepen their comprehension of public policy through engaging with real world scenarios. It describes the development of a constructivist learning environment (CLE) (Jonassen, 1999) for students in a postgraduate public policy module, fashioned by integrating a problem-based learning (PBL) approach with civic engagement processes. The article concludes by examining the potential of this approach as a teaching method and reflecting on student and staff feedback as well as on benefits described by partner organizations and the broader public.