Aside from a variety of experiences within the classroom, students in the department have the opportunity to visit different locations all over the world.
The Department of Politics and Government at Illinois State University has over four hundred students majoring in Politics and Government and over two hundred students with minors in the department. Our students are very involved in campus life, many are leaders in student government, others take part in activities in the Politics and Government lifestyle floors of the residence halls, and still others participate in a host of different student organizations.
The department also hosts an annual conference in which students from Illinois State, as well as a host of other universities are able to come together and share their research. Aside from from the on-site learning benefits of departmental internships, there are also many opportunities for students to travel, both nationally and abroad, to further their academic experience.
For those students who are already enrolled at Illinois State University and are interested in becoming majors in the department, please download our internal major application.
During the summer of 2006, three students spent time researching, volunteering, and witnessing the "facts on the ground" in Palestine. Dana Van De Walker, graduate student, has been in Bethlehem, Palestine since the end of May and will remain there for a year volunteering as an English translator and editor for the independent media organization Palestine News Network. Tanya Austin, graduate student, was in Palestine for the third time this summer for three months. She was guest lecturing at Bethlehem University, while conducting research for her master's thesis. Vanda Rajcan, undergraduate student, spent two months in Bethlehem, Palestine witnessing the facts on the ground. The three have done extensive travel within both Israel and Palestine including the cities of Haifa, Nazareth, Tiberias, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Hebron, Jericho, multiple refugee camps, and of course Bethlehem.
In May 2006, two political science undergraduate majors, Michael Bailey and Brad Melzer, attended the "Leaders on Leadership '06: Critical Issues in the Age of Globalization" program sponsored by The Washington Center. Over 100 students from across the nation were selected to participate in the program.
Professor Carlos A. Parodi and fifteen students from the Department of Politics and Government returned after spending a month in Lima, Peru as participants in the First International Maria Elena Moyano Seminar on Democracy and Human Rights in Peru. In addition to attending the seminar they were present for the first Peruvian National election since the resignation of President Alberto Fujimori and the specter of human rights abuses and corruption which had cast a pall over the country since the early 1990’s.