Franke W: APSA Panel or Section?

Thanks Irene.

As for (2) and (3) below – I (greatly greatly) appreciate your time and effort to take a first swipe at (3). I may have time to do the same just before Toronto – but not in the immediate next week or two.

On (2), while I hesitate to suggest forming yet another section, perhaps a round table or two at each APSA annual meeting would be in order? In my case and probably others there is no doubt that time spent in political practice cuts severely into time for scholarship. I am working on a textbook that has nothing to do with the state legislature but also does not generate research papers. Still, it is important, I think, to remain intellectually engaged with the profession and attending the annual meeting is the single best and most efficient way to do that.

So perhaps it would help some of us who are less research active as a result of public service still manage to be on the program and thus obtain some help with funding to attend the annual conference. Of course I also think that a couple of roundtables would be interest to others in the profession as well as to those of us engaged in political practice. I guess I don’t know how many people we are talking about. And as I said, I would not want this to get caught up in a campaign to start another APSA section – but this might be proposed as something included in every APSA annual meeting without having a section, rather sponsored by the program committee chair/s. Is that something that should be taken up with the Governing Council - because I can do that.

Beyond that, a listserv could be useful. As a state legislator I often sound like Johnny-one-note in committee and floor discussions when I ask “what have other states done? How are other states addressing the public employee retirement system crisis?” etc etc. But if there are too few of us working in one kind of venue, a listserv may not be of much use. I also found myself collaborating with feds on the issue of Veterans’ post-deployment mental health assessment and care – so there are times when I benefit from talking with someone other than other state-level practitioners.

Those are about the only ideas I have for now. Have I missed meeting times and dates or are they not out yet? You know how booked and overbooked we tend to get as the conference approaches.

Thanks again and I look forward to meeting you and our fellow practitioners!

Yours,

Franke W