Jim Read wins Best Paper Award from American Political Science Association

Jim Read, professor of political science and the Joseph P. Farry professor of public policy at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, recently received the 2010 Wilson Carey McWilliams Best Paper Award by the Politics, Literature, and Film section of the American Political Science Association (APSA).



Read’s paper was titled, “The Limits of Self-Reliance: Emerson, Slavery, and Abolition” and examined Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ideal of individual self-reliance as it confronted the seemingly intractable problem of slavery. Read, who presented his paper at the 2009 APSA annual meeting, has been on the faculty at CSB and SJU since 1988.

Read is the second CSB/SJU faculty member to receive an award from APSA. Matt Lindstrom, Ed Henry professor of political science at CSB and SJU and director of the Eugene J. McCarthy Center for Public Policy & Civic Engagement at Saint John’s University, won a Best Paper Presentation Award in the Undergraduate Education section at the 2002 ASPA annual meeting. The title of Lindstrom’s paper was “What's a Bus Ticket Got to Do with My American Politics Class? Experimenting with a Political Treasure Hunt.”

Klobuchar recalls McCarthy during talk at SJU

COLLEGEVILLE — Sen. Amy Klobuchar paid tribute to a political icon of Minnesota's past by referencing a current political figure from Alaska.
Klobuchar, DFL-Minn., spoke Monday night at the Eugene J. McCarthy Lecture at St. John's University.
McCarthy, a St. John's alum and U.S. senator from Minnesota, rose to national prominence in 1968 as an anti-war challenger to then-President and fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson.
McCarthy's independence and willingness to buck his party sets him apart from most of today's politicians, Klobuchar told an audience of students, faculty and university boosters.
"He went rogue before Sarah Palin had even shot her first moose," Klobuchar said of McCarthy.
Klobuchar likened today's economic uncertainty and political acrimony to the Vietnam War-era turmoil of 1968, the moment in history with which Klobuchar said McCarthy is most commonly associated.
She suggested now is an ideal time for the U.S. to revisit two causes McCarthy championed: boosting educational standards and increasing U.S. engagement in the international community.
Those causes offer a prescription for the U.S. to retain its world stature in the face of increasing competition from rival countries, such as China and India, Klobuchar said.
The U.S. must boost manufacturing exports, better educate its work force and allow more international students to stay in the U.S. after they graduate, Klobuchar said.
Klobuchar also offered suggestions to reduce partisan gridlock in the U.S. Senate. She called for new limits on use of the Senate filibuster, and for ending a practice where Klobuchar said senators can secretly delay votes on bills.
McCarthy served in a time of ideological diversity within America's two major political parties, Klobuchar said.
Throughout the years bipartisan coalitions in Congress have passed sweeping legislation to create Medicare and reform welfare programs, Klobuchar said.
Klobuchar said such two-party coalitions are far tougher to assemble today, in a political climate dominated by a 24-hour cable-news cycle.
"Today a politician who bucks the party line is risking his political life," Klobuchar said.
The lecture was sponsored by the Eugene J. McCarthy Center for Public Policy and Civic Engagement, which serves students at St. John's and the College of St. Benedict. Past speakers at the McCarthy Lecture were former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel, former NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne.