One Major, Multiple Paths
Law, elected office, public service, research — no matter what career path they choose, Hartwick political science students don’t wait for graduation to start making change. They’re inside the courtroom, on the campaign trail, and deep in the research that will help inform and transform their communities.
Hartwick students learn the inner workings of politics from people who know. Elected officials — many of them Hartwick alumni — are frequent classroom speakers. State Senator James Seward ’73, H’99 (ret.); Assembly member Jen Lunsford ’04; and former Saratoga Springs Major Joanne Dittes Yepsen ’80 are among those who recently shared their professional experience and insights with current students.
“When we integrate alumni into our classes, students get new ideas about what they can do with their degree,” Dr. Laurel Elder says. “Alumni offer career advice, and students build their networks.”
“Political polarization is huge these days,” says Skylar Thompson ’19, newly elected to the Oneonta Town Board. “My campaign slogan was ‘Working Together Works’ — the same one that my grandfather used when he ran for Otsego County Board 30 years ago.”
A lot has changed since then. “My Hartwick classes taught me about the importance of social media in a campaign,” Thompson says. “You can reach a lot of people without spending a lot of time or money.”
Thompson didn’t wait until graduation to dive into politics. He won a seat on the board of the West Oneonta Fire District in January 2019, while still a Hartwick senior. This fall he was back on campus, sharing campaign insights with current students in Professor Amy Forster Rothbart’s class.
Beyond politics, Thompson also puts his degree to work as a customer service representative at Community Bank NA in Walton.
“Banking is all about understanding policy and procedure,” he says. “And so many political science courses teach you to read and comprehend law and policy.”
Cara Dugan ’22, a political science and English double major, has already taken advantage of three opportunities to gain real-world work experience. First she worked with the local chapter of Democracy Matters, then she landed a law clerk position for attorney Mark Oursler and Judge John Lambert ’92 at the Otsego County Court. Now she’s an editor with the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council.
“The editorship is giving me unparalleled writing skills,” Dugan shares. “Democracy Matters helped me manage people and events. And the Otsego County Court taught me how to do research.”
Dugan puts those skills to the test on the e-board for Writing Underground, Hartwick’s literary club, and her work on the Honors Activity Board. And when she needs to cut loose, she alternates between guitar, bass, and drums in the Rock Ensemble.
“The classroom is one of the only places where students are going to hear a diversity of viewpoints and have those meaningful dialogues,” says Elder. “No matter what career a student chooses, they need to know how to follow what’s going on in the world. They need to understand how it affects them. Getting students active in politics helps them develop habits of effective citizenship.”
With three books on the subject, Dr. Laurel Elder, Professor of Political Science, has become a go-to expert on women in contemporary politics. Her latest work, The Partisan Gap — Why Democratic Women Get Elected But Republican Women Don’t (NYU Press) has earned accolades from fellow researchers and authors.
Following the 2020 election, Elder authored two articles with updates on the original research into the 2018 elections that she utilized in writing The Partisan Gap. She also had an op-ed “Why aren’t there more Republican women in Congress?” printed by The Washington Post.
Elder shows her commitment to Hartwick’s FlightPath in the classroom every day, and when she involves student assistants to help with her research. What an asset that will be on their digital resumes!