Teaching

POLS 30005: The United States Congress (Fall 2023, Spring 2024)
This course is a comprehensive introduction to the workings of the contemporary U.S. Congress. We will examine who runs for and who wins seats in Congress, the lawmaking processes in the House and Senate, and the roles of parties and leaders in the two chambers. The purpose of this course is to examine two fundamental questions: (1) what do members of Congress do and why and (2) how do the individual and collective actions of members of Congress explain national policy? We will examine the process of legislating as well as the role of political parties, leaders, and interest groups. Throughout the semester, we will debate the common criticism that “Congress is broken” and consider its effectiveness as an institution. Is policymaking too partisan? Is the public’s disapproval of Congress justified?
[Syllabus] [Sample Slides - Representation] [Sample Slides - Parties in Government]

POLS 40811: Quantitative Political Analysis (Spring 2023, Spring 2024)
This course is designed to achieve three objectives: (1) introduce you to research and quantitative analysis in political science, (2) help you become critical consumers of quantitative analysis used in political and policy-oriented reporting, and (3) give you the ability to answer questions of social scientific importance using data. Throughout the course, we’ll use what we’ve learned to think critically about the use and abuse of data by analysts, reporters, politicians, and policy advocates. As such, not only will you be learning to do your own analysis this semester, but also learning to evaluate such information when it’s presented in the media. The target audience for this course is undergraduate students with interest in the social sciences (not only Political Science), who want to use quantitative approaches to solve important social problems while simultaneously developing marketable, analytical skills.
[Syllabus] [Assignment - Critical Analysis Project] [Assignment - Estimating Turnout]

POLS 60040: American Political Institutions (Fall 2022, Fall 2024)
This course serves as one of two introductory graduate seminars for the American politics subfield with a focus on the study of institutions. The goal is to familiarize students with many of the foundational works in the study of American political institutions and provide an understanding of the different methodological and theoretical approaches currently used to study the American political system. Most weeks will be evenly split between classics in American politics and the latest research being done in the field. Students should emerge from this course with the broad knowledge necessary for the comprehensive exam in American politics and ideas for how their own research interests might fit into the current state of the literature.
[Syllabus]

POLI 281: Data in Politics (Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Summer Session II 2021)
Social scientific analytical skills are transforming many sectors—business, journalism, law, public policy, health care, and finance, to name but a few—and are more valued now than ever. The broad learning objective for this course is to help students develop the tools they need to be informed participants and active leaders in data-driven sectors. Throughout the course, we’ll discuss the complexities of generating good research designs, starting with how to ask interesting questions and how to measure concepts of interest to social scientists. We’ll discuss the challenges and limitations of gathering good data to test these theories as well as various statistical tools that can be used to evaluate our theories.
[Syllabus] [Assignment - Group Project]

POLI 100: Introduction to American Politics (Spring 2019)
In order to fully understand our complicated and contentious political climate and events, it is necessary to understand how the American political system works. We will work toward that understanding together by exploring the system from two angles: institutions, or the structure of the United States government; and behavior, or the actions and motivations of political actors, both politicians and the general public. We will discuss what problems the government and political system seek to solve and why they sometimes succeed and sometimes fail to solve those problems.
[Syllabus] [Sample Slides - The Constitution] [Sample Slides - The Bureaucracy]