68th Student Conference on U.S. Affairs

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:02:05 -0400

The Political Science Department is accepting applications to the the 68th Annual Student Conference on U.S. Affairs (SCUSA) at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York. This is an excellent opportunity to get involved in international and security debates with a large number of students and experts from around the country.

Every year, the Department sends two students to represent UMBC at this conference. Past participants have found the conference to be extremely rewarding. The Department covers registration fees and transportation to West Point, while the conference organizers provide room and board while there. If you are interested, please send a brief (one paragraph) letter of interest, including why you would like to go, what makes you qualified to represent the Department and your GPA to: Dr. Brian Grodsky, bgrodsky@umbc.edu. All applications must be received by September 19.

For more information, see below.

On behalf of Colonel Suzanne Nielsen, the head of the Department of Social Sciences, I would like to extend an invitation to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, to send two student delegates to participate in the 68th Annual Student Conference on U.S. Affairs (SCUSA), hosted by the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. The conference meets from November 9th through November 12th, 2016. West Point hosts SCUSA every fall, and it is the oldest and largest undergraduate conference of its type in the world. Approximately 200 undergraduate students from over 100 colleges and universities around the world attend SCUSA. Throughout the conference, the student delegates and cadets debate and formulate policy recommendations that realistically model American strategic responses to significant national and global challenges. The highlights of the four-day conference include the opening senior panel discussion on the evening of November 9th, an evening keynote banquet address, four roundtable sessions, and a closing-report session on November 12th. Recent keynote speakers have included Secretary Madeleine Albright, Ambassador Thomas Pickering, Lieutenant General (Ret.) Brent Scowcroft, and Admiral James Stavridis. Our organizing theme this year is "Democracy & Democratization: Challenges & Opportunities." Beginning the day after the U.S. presidential election, the conference invites participants to consider the challenges and opportunities facing the United States as it responds to key questions concerning the health and future of democracy. Among the questions to be explored are: what are the political, normative, and material limits to promoting democracy in the world? Does democracy confront greater challenges in some countries and regions? How does political radicalism in its many forms challenge democracy? What does the survival of authoritarian and hybrid regimes indicate about the long-term prospects for democracy internationally? Can democracy successfully navigate ethno-religious conflict?