APSA Pracademic Fellowship: The Third Epoch: A Pracademic View of the EPA’s Office of Policy

APSA Pracademic Fellowship: The Third Epoch: A Pracademic View of the EPA’s Office of Policy

Todd M. LaPorte, George Mason University
Susan M. Opp, Colorado State University

PS: Political Science & Politics, October 2016

Over the past several decades, limited opportunities have existed for faculty members in public management, public policy, and related fields to move between the academy and the world of practitioners. The Beryl Radin Pracademic Fellowship Program, announced in 2013 and administered by the APSA Centennial Center for Political Science and Public Affairs, creates opportunities for newer faculty members to recreate the historical experience of joining theory and practice.

Beryl Radin, 2013 Gaus Award winner, established this program to serve others like her who move back and forth between the world of the practitioner and that of the academic. The fellowship provides APSA member academics in the areas of public policy, public administration, and related fields with practical, hands-on experience built around the reality of the decision-making world. The recipients can take this experience back to their institutions and classrooms to help build bridges between the academic and practitioner worlds.

Apply Now for the APSA Pracademic Fellowship Program here.

Susan M. Opp and Todd M. La Porte, the 2016 inaugural Pracademic Fellows, share their experience in two different locations at the Environmental Protection Agency. Following the strategy of the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program and the dozens of Fellows who relate their fellowship experiences, APSA has also included articles by Beryl Radin Pracademic Fellows in the pages of PS: Political Science and Politics.

In 2017, Pracademic Fellows will be assigned to work closely with a Washington, DC area decision-maker involved in a program of their interest to get a first-hand vantage point of a decision-making environment. The fellowship will be available for either one semester or a full year. Faculty members from a range of departments and fields are eligible for the program, for example faculty in political science departments, public administration, public management, public policy, federalism/IGR and related fields. This program is ideally suited for scholars who are mid-career, likely at the associate professor level or above.

More details, including application requirements and deadlines, are available on the APSA Pracademic Fellowship Program webpage.


Apply Now for the APSA Pracademic Fellowship Program here. Application submissions close Sunday, January 15, 2017.