An Eventful Fall Semester

 

Dear Friends of the Politics Department,

An especially eventful semester is coming to a close, and we have much to report on what our faculty, students, and alumni have been up to. You can learn more on our news and events page and our X and Instagram feeds as well. As always, if you have any items to contribute to our next newsletter, please do not hesitate to send them to me (greenm@cua.edu).

Many of our events are made possible by alumni donations to the department’s Annual Fund. If you are interested in supporting the Fund or helping the department in other ways, you can learn more here.

Meatball wants everyone to know that it’s important to find time to relax -- although I wouldn’t necessarily recommend his choice of sleeping positions.

sleeping cat

Matthew Green
Professor and Vice Chair
Department of Politics      

Campus Events

  • Gustavo Santos gave a talk on campus April 22 on the work of DOGE.
  • Matthew Green joined Professor Emeritus John White for a talk on campus on April 23 reviewing the first one hundred days of the second Trump Administration.

     Green - White talk

  • The Carroll Forum held its annual Constitution Day lecture on September 16, which was given by Dean Lee Trepanier of Assumption University, entitled "Character Education and the Constitution.” The Forum also hosted a book talk on The Price of the Common Good by Dr. Mark Hoipkemer of the University of Notre Dame.

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  • Other speakers who came to campus included Lt. Col. Paul Lushenko, to discuss his research on trust and legitimacy of AI systems; Stacey McRenolds from the Drug Enforcement Agency, to discuss the global opioid crisis; Fr. Michael Baggot on ethical AI, parental lawsuits and protecting minors from exploitative AI; and Adam Drucker, who gave a talk entitled “Following the 9/11 Money Trail.” 

  • The department held a "Pizza and Politics" reception for politics majors on September 11.
    poster

Our Faculty


Recent faculty achievements include:

  • Maryann Cusimano Love served the Holy See Mission at the United Nations in negotiations for the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons and was selected as a Fellow in Notre Dame University's Kroc Institute of Peace program. She also gave a presentation on artificial intelligence  and peacebuilding at an international conference at Javeriana University in Bogota, Colombia.  
  • Matthew Green received 2025 Barbara Sinclair Lecture award by the American Political Science Association. The award is given scholars who promote wider understanding of the U.S. Congress and legislative politics. He also participated in a panel discussion in September at Purdue University on the growth of presidential power over time.
  • Andrew Yeo was interviewed on CNN discussing the state of U.S.-South Korean relations. 
  • Yeo CNN
  • Jakub Grygiel published an essay in Foreign Policy on Europe's inability to meet its security commitments.
  • Dorle Hellmuth was interviewed by Rowan University's Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights about her research on violent political extremism.
  • Professor emeritus David Walsh published a new book, The Invisible Source of Authority: God in a Secular Age (University of Notre Dame Press). He also delivered the keynote address as Georgetown University’s Second Annual Conference on the State of Democracy in the Americas and gave a lecture at an October workshop on The Person in Politics and Politics in the Person at the University of Vilnius in Lithuania.

     Walsh

  • Justin Litke, Sarah Gustafson, and Michael Promisel attended a workshop in October at the American Enterprise Institute entitled “Slavery, Equality, and Religion in the American Revolution.”

 

Student and Alumni Achievements

  • John McCarthy (B.A. 2013) was named an inaugural senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Initiative for Catholic Social Thought and Public Life.
  • Six honors thesis students presented their work to faculty and students on May 5. Congratulations to George Pierson for receiving a grade of distinction for his oral presentation!
  • honors theses
  • Two politics students, Riley Bauer and Marta Bystrowska, were awarded Hertog Foundation Political Studies Fellowships. 
  • Felipe Mosquera, a Politics doctoral student, published an article in DIECIOCHO, a journal on the Hispanic Enlightenment, as well as a book review in the Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy.
  • Ph.D. student Brigid Hickman, an active duty Army officer, was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in September.
  • Ph.D. student Jonathan Froehlich won second place in the graduate division of the Human Rights Essay Contest sponsored by CUA’s Center for Human Rights.