New Stats, New Faces: Updates from Department Head Brandon Prins
New Stats, New Faces: Updates from Department Head Brandon Prins
Greetings alumni and friends,
As head of the Department of Political Science, I wanted to share some exciting updates from the past year as we begin 2024. First, the number of undergraduate Political Science majors and minors continues to grow. We have seen a nearly 30% increase since 2019. The department also welcomed 10 bright, new graduate students this past fall. Four of these students come to Knoxville from great distances: Nigeria, China, and Turkey.
The new class of graduate students joins their more senior colleagues in pursuing important policy-relevant research that will help elucidate difficult challenges confronting Tennessee and our world today, such as climate change, violent extremism, poverty, discrimination, and sustainable development. The department expects great things from these students in the future.
Second, Political Science welcomed four new faculty members to the department this past fall, which created excitement and energy inside and outside of the classroom. Vasabjit Banerjee, whose research focuses on insurgencies, civil-military relations, and state formation, came to UT from Mississippi State University, where he had spent eight years as a faculty member in their department of political science. We are happy that he relocated to Rocky Top.
Carolyn Holmes also joins us from Mississippi State University after seven years spent teaching in the department of political Science. Her research on nationalist and post-conflict transitions to democracy in sub-Saharan Africa adds an important new regional context to comparative politics course offerings.
Wayde Marsh joins us from the University of Notre Dame. His research explores polarization and voting behavior in the United States.
Finally, Jordan Carr Peterson brings expertise in regulation and public law to our program; two areas of research that are in demand by both undergraduate and graduate students. These four scholars expand our course offerings, introduce new ideas to students, and bring expertise to help solve public policy problems.
Third, we are thrilled about the recent successes of our doctoral students. A Fulbright Fellowship (one of 13 awarded to UT students this past year), a US Department of Education Award for language training (maybe the first won by a student at UT), and a pre-doctoral fellowship at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Our graduate students continue to shine and we are proud of their accomplishments.
Fourth, as you may be aware, the College of Arts and Sciences has moved to a divisional structure, with three distinct sections: Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, and Natural Sciences and Mathematics. Each division has a divisional dean that reports directly to the executive dean of the college.
The new divisional structure is a pilot and will be reviewed after two years. The College’s 21 academic departments, eight centers and institutes, and nine interdisciplinary programs continue to exemplify the best of Rocky Top. We are hopeful that this new college structure will better support the needs of students, faculty, and staff.
Finally, the department would like to gratefully acknowledge the long service of Professor Yang Zhong. He joined the department in 1991 while completing his doctoral dissertation at the University of Kentucky. Over his 33 years of service to the department, Zhong taught thousands of students about East Asia, Chinese politics and culture, and US-China relations. The department will miss Zhong and we wish him the very best in his retirement.
Please be sure to visit McClung Tower and the department when you are on campus. We would love to see you. Go Vols!
Brandon Prins, Professor and Head