The Department Today

The Department of Political Studies is committed to continuing its traditions of academic excellence through its commitment to strong research and innovative teaching. Building on the national and international reputations of former professors R. MacGregor Dawson, Frank Underhill and Norman Ward, the Department has broadened its early focus on Canadian institutions into a study of modern governance and public policy, from a Canadian, comparative and international perspective; this includes the critically important perspective of Aboriginal peoples.

We live in a time of rapid and transformative change, in which people's lives are shaped increasingly by global forces and norms. The Department of Political Studies has thus identified "Governance in a Global Era" as a key theme around which to build a research focus. Faculty and students conduct research on how governing institutions and processes in Canada and around the world are affected by major global forces such as race, ethnicity and culture, new patterns of international trade and economic organization, democratization, development, ideologies, religious movements, terrorism, innovative technologies, the opening of the Circumpolar North, and the aspirations of Indigenous peoples.

The core of the Department, including colleagues from the affiliated St. Thomas More College, is thirteen tenured and tenurable faculty, complemented by two adjunct professors, four active professors emeriti, four faculty affiliates, and one senior fellow, the former Premier of Saskatchewan, Roy Romanow.

We have a highly regarded, one-year MA program in Political Studies and our faculty supervise PhD students in Interdisciplinary Studies. In the next year the Department will be expanding its graduate training at the PhD level through a formal connection with the University's emerging interdisciplinary School of Public Policy.

At the undergraduate level, the Department offers three degree programs: Political Studies, Aboriginal Public Administration and Public Administration, the latter two being interdisciplinary programs. We are also major contributors to a number of other interdisciplinary programs across campus, including International Studies, Regional and Urban Development, Indigenous Peoples and Justice, and Biotechnology.

We are committed to delivering graduate and undergraduate courses in diverse and innovative formats. The Department offers core courses in the electronically-based Master of International Trade and BA Northern Studies Programs and it also plays a key role in a number of study abroad (e.g., Guatemala Study Abroad Program) and student exchange programs (e.g., University of the Arctic's North2North Exchange Program). As well, the Department is responsible for the co-management of the Saskatchewan Legislative Internship Program, and it offers internship courses each year as part of the Career Internship Program and the Aboriginal Administrative Internship.

Faculty in the Department have become well-known to the local, provincial and national media as experts in their fields, providing analysis on public issues of various kinds on a regular basis. Certainly how Saskatchewan governance and politics are viewed across the country is very much influenced by the public commentary of political scientists at the University of Saskatchewan. They have also distinguished themselves as leaders and members of Royal Commissions, task forces and other public bodies, and as expert witnesses providing testimony to committees of the House of Commons and Senate and of the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly. It is the academic and public reputation of faculty, together with the profile and expertise of former political leaders and public officials recruited by the Department as professional associates, that invests the Department's graduate and undergraduate programs with relevance and vitality.

Department of Political Studies
University of Saskatchewan
283C Arts Building
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada S7N 5A5
Telephone: (306) 966-1666
Email: political.studies@usask.ca