University of Maine political science students are gaining a new perspective on global issues thanks to an annual conference at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

“The conference was the highlight of my time at UMaine,” said junior Kevin Price, selected by the Political Science Department last year to attend the 61st Student Conference on United States Affairs (SCUSA). At the event, students from 125 colleges and universities across the country were asked to discuss the challenges the U.S. faces in a global society.

“We focused on the current economic crisis,” said Price. “We had to prepare a two page policy paper that would be presented to the President or an advisor about how to improve the economic situation.”

“My team suggested that the best way to help countries with weak economic systems would be for the U.S. to give financial aid directly to businesses instead of a government’s general fund. That way, we’d make sure the money would actually be used to help the people. We also suggested that the U.S. re-evaluate the aid we’re already giving to make sure it’s being utilized the way it should be and isn’t being wasted.

“It was a very politically diverse group that included some West Point cadets who had a more conservative approach than students from the University of San Diego who had different ideas,” said Price. “So we decided to keep our recommendations pretty much down the middle. That turned out to be a real challenge.

“We all saw the problem, but we had different ways of going about fixing it so we had to compromise. We decided to go with a somewhat liberal approach, but we made sure to include the idea of being more accountable.”

Condensing the recommendations was no easy task either, he said.

“Each of us could have written a term paper on the topic, but the idea was to leave our suggestions vague enough so that no one would be turned off by the details and would be able to flesh it out in his or her own way.”

Discussing ideas with exchange students from countries including Egypt and Nairobi gave Price a different point of view, he said.

“We heard first-hand from these international students about how our policy would affect their homeland. We realized that it’s easy to say that the government of a particular country is corrupt and that we should stop giving money. But once you put a face with a foreign country, it was difficult to have that outlook.”

Samantha Shulman, a senior who attended the student conference in 2008, said she also came away with a better understanding of other people’s perspectives.

“Our group explored different ways to deal with terrorism and discussed how using diplomacy could help decrease it. It was a pretty controversial topic since many members of my group had not only very different – but also very strong – opinions on how to tackle terrorism.

“There were people from both sides – some really conservative and others really liberal,” she continued. “They were from all different countries. I met students from Turkey, Ireland, England, and France. In the end we all got a better understanding of each other’s points of view. It was great meeting all kinds of people with different backgrounds who were interested in political science and policy making. ”

His conference featured a number of speakers including the advisor to President Carter and President Clinton and a representative from a global investment company whose job it was to travel the world and find companies in which to invest, said Price.

“He could be researching a company in China that seems promising and that could turn out to be the next Google. It seemed like a very exciting, interesting job.”

Both Price and Shulman said they enjoyed experiencing the lifestyle of a West Point cadet.

“We slept on an army issue cot with a scratchy wool blanket,” said Price. “We’d wake up at 5:30 a.m. which took some adjusting. West Point has the largest dining hall in North America. They can serve 4,000 people in 20 minutes. There was no lingering after meals. The food was quite good, though.”

Shulman said she knows now about the grueling regimen at military academies.

“The cadets go from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. with no break. It was really interesting to see the West Point culture.”

The University of Maine’s Congressional Internship Program turned 50 last year with a celebration hosted and sponsored by Peter Madigan ’81 at his Washington, D.C., lobbying firm of Johnson, Madigan, Peck, Boland & Stewart.

Attending the March 2009 reception were nearly 80 guests including current and former UMaine interns from the offices of Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Rep. Michael Michaud. Also on hand were UMaine faculty and staff and UMaine Honors College students, as well as former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and former Maine Governor John Reed.

Professor Emeritus Kenneth Palmer, who directed the prestigious internship program from 1969 to 2004, traveled to Washington, D.C., from his home in Kittery for the event.

“People very much appreciated the opportunity Peter afforded us to get together and meet the many alumni of the Congressional Internship Program,” said Professor Palmer, noting that interns representing all five decades of the program attended the event.
“For the first time I met alumni who had participated in the program before I took over in 1969,” he continued. “I mean people in their 60’s and not far from my age – 72. It was great! ”
UMaine’s Congressional Internship Program was established in 1957 by Professor Edward Dow, chair of UMaine’s then Department of History and Government, who wanted to provide students with practical government experience to complement their classroom work. Dow knew a number of Maine politicians, including Sens. Frederick Payne and Edmund Muskie, who liked his idea and helped him launch the program.

Since 1972 every member of Maine’s Congressional Delegation has had a UMaine intern. These young people are regarded as full time staff members. They monitor hearings and debates, write press releases, deliver documents to the Capitol, conduct research, attend meetings and events, and correspond with constituents.

The program at UMaine is unusual because students are paid a monthly salary by the congressional offices which helps defray the costs of living in D.C. and ensures that the offices are guaranteed a good worker for the whole semester. Selected each year according to their academic records as well as personal maturity and professionalism, the interns are given a significant amount of responsibility, an indication of the reputation and success of UMaine’s program.

“I believe our program is the gold standard – it is also one of the oldest in the country,” said Professor Palmer. “Right from the beginning it was a partnership between the political science faculty and the Maine delegation members and their staffs. It worked so well because the students did a great job, becoming contributing members of their staffs, and also because we in Orono did our part too. We carefully screened students and made sure the team every year was strong. We worked closely with the congressional delegation and their office staffs. For example, we visited each of the Washington offices every year to check on the progress of the interns.

“We told newly selected interns that they were ambassadors from the University of Maine and that their work would have an impact on how well the Congressional Internship Program operated the next year. Their performance was always excellent and it made a positive impact on both public policy and their individual careers, for which I’m enormously proud.”

University of Maine Professor Emeritus Ken Palmer first became interested in politics during the surprise presidential election of 1948.

“The polls predicted that Gov. Thomas Dewey of New York would win easily over President Harry Truman,” said the political science professor, then an 11-year-old living in a small town in New Jersey.

“On election evening I stayed up late listening to the returns on the radio with my parents who were Dewey supporters.  Even though Truman started out ahead they said he wouldn’t win since the early returns came from big cities which were Democratic. When I went to bed my Dad said he would wake me if Dewey had been elected. Of course that never happened. The next morning Truman’s lead had grown, but the election was still too close to call. When I got to school, the teacher had a radio on his desk and wrote the votes of the electoral college on the blackboard as the votes from swing states were counted.  The contest wasn’t settled for Truman until about 11 a.m. It was the biggest presidential election upset ever.”

To this day, Professor Palmer finds politics fascinating. “State politics is important and legislatures are particularly important because they’re the baseline of democracy. The health of our country in some ways is measured by the health of state legislatures,” said the professor, who

presented the second annual Maine Heritage Lecture, sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, last fall. The lecture, “Maine’s Paradoxical Politics” will be included in the winter/spring issue of the Maine Policy Review, published by UMaine’s Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center.

“I enjoyed giving the talk. It gave me an opportunity to reflect on aspects of Maine politics that I’d been researching,” said Professor Palmer who has written several books and many articles on Maine politics, including a study of the effects of term limits on the Maine State Legislature. He and three other professors recently published a second edition of “Maine Politics and Government.” (University of Nebraska Press, 2009).

Upon his transition to professor emeritus in 2004, he was cited by the Maine Legislature and Gov. Baldacci for his contributions to the state.

Although retired from UMaine, Professor Palmer still teaches part-time. Each spring, he conducts an on-line undergraduate course called American State and Local Government.

“It enables me to continue to share my knowledge of Maine,” he said. “We have a nice group of students of different ages and interests, including a legislator, a town council member, and people who serve in state government.”

Jason C. Libby, one of Professor Palmer’s former students who assists him with the on-line course, says “he’s got a great handle on Maine politics. He knows everybody — from state legislators to policy makers to bureaucrats, from Gov. John Baldacci to Sen. Olympia Snowe. He has this longitudinal understanding of what’s going on in state politics and is incredibly knowledgeable. It’s no wonder that people turn to him for information.”

Maine has a dynamic and healthy political system that differs from those in other states in a variety of ways, according to Professor Palmer.

“We have a very high level of civic engagement and voting participation and there are lots of candidates who run for office,” he said. “There are many tight races. Because we have two candidates in almost all of our legislative races, elections turn into a contest rather than an acceptance of one party’s nominee. We don’t have much of a right wing or a left wing. Instead we have moderate political parties that don’t buy into ideology. Democrats in Maine aren’t as different from Republicans as they are in other states and in Congress. We’re a blue state but we have lots of independent voters. All in all we’ve got a pretty constructive and healthy political system that seems to be able to deal with issues as they come up.”

Former student Michael Johnson said Professor Palmer “has his finger on the pulse of Maine politics.

“He would always inject interesting stories into his lectures and really make politics come to life for us students,” said Johnson, a legislative aide who teaches communications at Kennebec Valley Community College. “He’s always been a great mentor to me. To this day, I bounce ideas off him and ask him for advice.”

Teaching political science at UMaine is particularly gratifying for Professor Palmer. “Students here are very interested in it and a fair number of our alumni go into government service,” he said. “The Political Science Department tries to stress the importance of being involved and taking responsibility for the condition of one’s state and local governments.

“People really can make a difference.”

Professor Palmer has helped hundreds of students realize that. For 31 years he coordinated UMaine’s prestigious Congressional Internship Program in which students spend a semester working in the offices of members of the state’s Congressional Delegation in Washington, D.C.

“More than a quarter of the 200 UMaine students who have participated in the program over the years are involved in public service or some form of government activity,” Professor Palmer said. “We wanted the program to be an enriching experience for motivated students who sought to gain exposure in national politics.”

It’s a tough time to be in public office, according to the professor who has great respect for people who run for election, whether at the local, state, or federal level.

“With so many issues and demands, government is ever more important in what it does and in the consequences it has,” he said. “There’s an old phrase – ‘Politics ain’t beanbag.’ In other words, politics is a serious game.

“And that’s true today more than ever.”

University of Maine political science Professor Richard Powell fulfilled a long-held dream this semester.

He has been in China after being awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to teach American government at Zhejiang University, one of China’s oldest and most prestigious institutions of higher education. The university is located in Hangzhou, a city of eight million, about an hour and a half south of Shanghai.

For the past five months he conducted graduate courses on mass media and elections and on congress and the presidency.

“This is a wonderful professional opportunity,” said Professor Powell, who has wanted to teach in China for a number of years.

“China is one of the most important countries on the world stage and is becoming more important every year,” he said last January before beginning his travels.

“The U.S. and China are partners in some areas and competitors in others. Our relationship is clearly one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world in terms of economics, climate change, and human rights. This fellowship will enable me to help the Chinese understand Americans better and to learn more about China and bring this information back home.”

Professor Powell taught in English which Chinese students learn at a young age.

Making his experience even more rewarding, he brought along his wife, Angela, and their three children, Rye, 14, Drew, 11, and Susannah, 9. They lived on campus in a three-bedroom apartment provided by Zhejiang University. The children attended the Hangzhou International School run by Americans for international students.

Professor Powell said he was delighted to have the opportunity to enrich the youngsters’ education and expose them to another culture and language. The family looked forward to exploring the country and to immersing themselves in daily Chinese life as much as possible, he added. Aiming to deliver guest lectures on American politics at universities around China, Professor Powell said he hoped his family could accompany him on some of those trips.

“The children are especially excited to visit Beijing to see the Great Wall as well as the Olympic venues. We also would like to travel to Hunan where we adopted our daughter in 2001.”

The UMaine professor was busy on a variety of fronts. In addition to teaching and lecturing, he researched an article he is writing on presidential communications.

“Part of what I’m doing is examining how U.S. presidents are portrayed in Chinese news media.”

Explaining to Chinese students about how our government functions and what’s unique about our culture was the focus of his teaching, according to Professor Powell.

“I want to help them understand what works in the U.S., what doesn’t work, and why we do the things we do.”

The experience will enhance his teaching here at UMaine, he said.

“We talk about China in my American politics course as it relates to foreign policy and politics. So I’m hoping to find more opportunities to involve topics about that country.”

U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe is praising the efforts of UMaine student Nate Wildes, a junior from Cumberland who worked as an intern in her Washington, D.C. office during the spring semester. UMaine’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences manages the Congressional Internship Program that afforded Wildes this opportunity.  “I cannot thank Nate enough for his extraordinary work for me and the people of Maine as an intern,” said Senator Snowe. “Time and again, Nate went above and beyond what was asked of him and he has truly been an outstanding asset for me and my staff.  He certainly epitomizes Maine’s hallmark work ethic and can-do spirit many times over.”

A political science major and an innovation engineering minor, Wildes also serves as the president of the UMaine Class of 2012. He is the son of Bruce and Nancy Wildes of Cumberland.

For a link to the story, see further at http://umaine.edu/news/blog/2011/05/13/sen-snowe-praises-umaine-student-intern/

Benjamin Fox was this year’s recipient of the Edward Collins Outstanding Senior Award in International Affairs/Political Science. Christopher Harmon was this year’s recipient of the Eugene Mawhinney Outstanding Senior Award in Political Science.

Congratulations to all!