Join our expert panelists for a discussion on teaching American Politics in times of political uncertainty and crisis. 
Thursday, June 5, 2025 | 1:00 p.m. Eastern | Register Here

Responding to the current political environment in the United States, the panelists will share how they are rethinking the Introduction to American Politics class.  Panelists will address overarching questions about structuring the course, incorporating insights from Comparative Politics, and teaching particular topics.  Panelists will also share specific strategies or activities they use in their classes. Featured panelists include: 

Marjorie R. Hershey, Indiana University  
Megan Ming Francis, University of Washington 
Kenneth M. Roberts, Cornell University 
Allison Rank, State University of New York Oswego 
(Moderator) Robert Lieberman, Johns Hopkins University

APSA thanks the American Democracy Collaborative for contributing to this event. The American Democracy Collaborative is a group of scholars of American politics and comparative politics who have come together to examine the state of democracy in the United States today.

APSA’s teaching and learning webinars provide political science scholar-educators with a platform to discuss breaking news, current events, and political trends from unique disciplinary perspectives.

Participation is free, but registration is required. Register here. 

Meet the Panelists 

Marjorie R. Hershey is a professor emerita of political science at Indiana University who specializes in US political parties and political communications. She has taught the introductory American Politics course for centuries, served as Director of Undergraduate Studies for her department, and received 17 teaching awards. She has written the free e-book “How to Teach American Politics (and Other Subjects) Effectively.”

She is the author of four books, including Party Politics in America, the 19th edition of which will be published next month by Routledge, and a series of articles in professional journals. She also gives frequent public talks and speaks regularly with journalists.

Megan Ming Francis is the G. Alan and Barbara Delsman Associate Professor of Political Science and an Associate Professor of Law, Societies, and Justice at the University of Washington. Francis specializes in the study of American politics, with broad interests in social movements, constitutional law, critical philanthropy, and the post-civil war South. She is the author of the award-winning book, Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State (Cambridge University Press) and a co-author of the American Politics textbook We The People (Norton).

Kenneth M. Roberts is the Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government at Cornell University. His teaching and research interests explore political representation, the politics of inequality, and crises of democracy, with a specialization in Latin America and comparative interests in Europe and the United States. His most recent books include Democratic Resilience: Can the United States Withstand Rising Polarization? (co-edited with Robert Lieberman and Suzanne Mettler, Cambridge University Press) and the forthcoming Polarization and Democracy in Latin America: Legacies of the Left Turn (co-authored with Santiago Anria, University of Chicago Press).   

Allison Rank is an associate professor of American Politics at SUNY Oswego. Her research agenda focuses on political science pedagogy, campus-based civic engagement, and pop culture & politics. In addition to teaching traditional political science courses, she serves as campaign manager for the campus-wide voter mobilization program Vote Oswego and coordinator of SUNY Oswego’s broader civic engagement efforts. She is the recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (May 2024) as well as the Barbara Burch Award for Faculty Leadership in Civic Engagement (AASCU’s American Democracy Project, June 2024). Recent publications include Civic Pedagogies: Teaching Engagement in an Era of Divisive Politics (Palgrave 2024) for which she served as co-editor along with Lauren C. Bell and Carah Ong Whaley. 

Robert C. Lieberman is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. He studies American political development, race and American politics, and public policy. He has also written extensively about the development of American democracy and the links between American and comparative politics. 

His most recent book is Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy (St. Martin’s Press, 2020), co-authored with Suzanne Mettler. His first book, Shifting the Color Line: Race and the American Welfare State (Harvard University Press, 1998), won the Social Science History Association Presidential Book Award, the Thomas J. Wilson Prize of Harvard University Press, and Columbia University’s Lionel Trilling Award. Shaping Race Policy: The United States in Comparative Perspective (Princeton University Press, 2005) was awarded the Best Book Prize by the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. He is also the co-editor of Democratization in America: A Comparative-Historical Analysis (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), Beyond Discrimination: Racial Inequality in a Postracist Era (Russell Sage Foundation, 2013), and The Oxford Handbook of American Political Development (Oxford University Press, 2016). 

View all of APSA’s Teaching and Learning webinars here. Please direct all questions to teaching@apsanet.org