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Erin Richards

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Erin Richards is Senior I Tenured Faculty at Cascadia College in Bothell, Washington.  Her academic interests include American institutions, State and Local Government, Women in Politics, citizenship and pedagogy.  She has published on community college teaching and worked on a multi-year multi-campus project examining learning and civic engagement in American Government courses. She also helped create and implement curriculum for the Bachelors of Applied Science in Sustainable Practices degree at Cascadia

Ms Richards has served the discipline in many capacities including chairing the Ad Hoc Committee on the Status of Community Colleges in the Profession for APSA, the report of which led to creation of the Committee on the Status of Community Colleges in the Profession on which she serves.  She also currently serves on the Editorial board for the Journal of Political Science Education.  Ms Richards has also served as executive committee member, secretary, president-elect, president and ex-officio for the Pacific Northwest Political Science Association, as well as on the Executive Committee for the Political Science Education Section of APSA.  Finally, Ms Richards served on the Program Committee for APSA’s Teaching and Learning Conference where she helped create a community colleges track which led to increased community college faculty attendance at the conference.

Statement of Views:

As a member of the council, I look forward to suggesting, advocating for and supporting programs and policies that further APSA’s core objective of “promoting high quality teaching and education about politics and government.”  Community college faculty specifically, and faculty primarily focused on teaching generally, have identified professional development and networking opportunities they desire to help them be both better teachers and better political scientists.  I hope to serve as a voice of this population to help identify and address these needs; I hope that increasing focus on teaching will also help to increase membership in APSA as more teaching focused faculty see value in membership in the organization.  Lastly, I believe my presence on council will be a tangible sign that APSA values community colleges and their faculty as legitimate members of the discipline addressing a concern noted by the Ad Hoc Committee for the Status of Community Colleges in the Profession.  I look forward to working with APSA staff and fellow council members to ensure that APSA is positioned to direct resources to programs and policies that ensure political science faculty continue to engage in best practices to educate future citizens.