Undergraduate Program in Politics and Government

The Department of Politics and Government at Illinois State University offers a vareity of both majors and minors for students interested in different aspects of the field. Please review the detailed information about our specific Major and Minor sequences.

Desired Learning Outcomes

The Political Science undergraduate program serves multiple audiences, most notably departmental majors and those students who take political science courses to fulfill university requirements or out of general interest. Student learning objectives include:

1. Understanding of structures and processes of American government commensurate with citizenship duties and an effective civil society.
2. Acquiring a high degree of familiarity with a broad range of political systems (including the global political order) and cultural perspectives.
3. Developing effective written and communication skills.
4. Enhancing the ability of students to conceptualize problems and apply analytical tools to solve them.
5. Exposing majors to at least three of the subfields of political science, including at least one non-U.S.

For these objectives, the program has the following goals:

1. Offering a comprehensive selection of courses across a broad range of subject matters.
2. Providing high quality instruction across departmental offerings.
3. Supporting structured educational extracurricular experiences (internship, in service learning).
4. Allowing majors the opportunity to choose coursework that is relatively concentrated across a wide range of disciplinary sub-fields.
5. Requiring at least one upper division course organized and taught as a seminar and involving a substantial writing project.
6. Facilitating unstructured extra-classroom opportunities to learn about politics.
7. Rewarding excellent student performance with travel grants, scholarships, honorary society activity, and other recognition.
8. Providing academic advice on all aspects of the major.