Campus News

Political science department to host conference

The UGA School of Public and International Affairs will hold the 31st annual meeting of the Society for Political Methodology July 24-26 at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education. The meeting is being hosted by UGA’s department of political science.

This summer’s conference will bring together some 180 political science faculty and graduate students from across the U.S. and abroad. Of note, David Nickerson of Notre Dame will be reporting the results of a field experiment from Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign. His study found that receiving a personal phone call from a campaign volunteer bumped a voter’s support by 3.5 percentage points.

John Maltese, head of the political science department, said that bringing the prestigious conference to UGA is a major coup.

“This conference will provide national exposure to our department, school and university,” Maltese said. “It also will be a remarkable opportunity for our graduate students to interact with leading scholars in our field and meet graduate students from other institutions.”

Faculty members Keith T. Poole, Ryan Bakker and Jamie Monogan of SPIA’s political science department have organized the conference with the help of other faculty and students.