Fall 2005
For the Record
News from the Center
LaDonna Sullivan         
In addition to its long-standing doctoral fellowship program, the Carl Albert Center has sponsored an undergraduate research program since 1987. This program involves top University of Oklahoma undergraduate students in collaborative research projects with professors. Associate Director Glen S. Krutz is now responsible for the undergraduate research program as well as two new endeavors for undergraduate students.

Undergraduate Research Fellows
    The twelve students selected for academic year 2005-2006 (and their faculty collaborators) are: Kevi Brown  (Aimee Franklin); Shuting Chen and Lindsay Dowell (Glen Krutz); Sarah Fox and Jason Hartwig (Cindy Simon Rosenthal); Ben Gravley (Keith Gaddie and Ron Peters); James Hartline (Keiko Ono); Kevin Selger (Peggy Ellis); Zack Shipley (Russell Lucas); and Ben Wilson (Keith Gaddie); and Jenna Morey and Jeanette Norris (Mary Outwater at OU-POLL).
    Student-professor collaborations often lead to joint papers for academic conventions and/or research publications such as these recent ones:
Great American Cities Program
    A joint venture between the Close-Up Foundation in Washington D.C. and the Carl Albert Center provides disadvantaged high school youth a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in a civics training program, and thereby to develop important leadership skills. Five OU undergraduate students were selected to serve as Student Mentors for this program: Rachel Griffith, Nik Lee, Kelsey Mishkin, Paul Shanor, and Christie Shea.  They are working with 100 high school students from 10 schools in the Tulsa area.  In November 2005, these five OU students, accompanied by Associate Director Glen Krutz, traveled to Washington to participate in the traditional Close-Up experience with Tulsa high school students and their teachers.  During the remainder of the academic year, each of the OU Student Mentors will work with two Tulsa school groups on community action initiatives. The culmination of the program is a week-long Tulsa Youth Summit to be held on the University of Oklahoma campus in June 2006. 

Capitol Scholars Program
     A select group of OU undergraduate students was admitted in November 2005 to a new public service learning program and will be placed during the 2006 legislative session in policy-related internships with the Oklahoma Legislature, state agencies, interest groups, or the media.  The Capitol Scholars Program is designed to help students develop professional experience and skills, gain insights into the Oklahoma legislative process and policy issues, and obtain intimate knowledge of the legislative session and state government. Student internship experiences will be enriched through weekly seminars and briefings with state leaders. The inaugural group of Capitol Scholars and their tentative placements are:
    In fall 2006, the Center will launch a companion program, Community Scholars,  to provide opportunities for service learning in public policy and representative institutions of local government and community-based non-profit organizations.

Carl Albert Fellows
    Two new graduate students were admitted into the Carl Albert Center Graduate Fellowship Program this fall. William Curtis Ellis received a B.A. in political science and economics at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, where he re-established the college’s chapter of Young Democrats.  In the summer before his senior year, he received one of Randolph-Macon’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships and his project –  Economic Perceptions and Partisan Voting Behavior – was subsequently recognized by an American Political Science Association award for Best Undergraduate Research. During two internships with the Virginia state government, Curtis worked for Delegate Kenneth R. Plum, a senior Democratic member of the Virginia House, as well as Lt. Governor (and governor-elect) Timothy M. Kaine. 
    Martin J. Hanifin is a summa cum laude graduate of Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont, where he received a B.A. in government and was class valedictorian.  He received a du Pont Fellowship for graduate studies at the University of Virginia and earned an M.A. in government, with concentrations in American government and East Asian comparative government.  Marty is also a 1993 law school graduate of the University of Virginia and is admitted to practice in Vermont and Colorado. Marty’s political and professional experiences include five years of combined staff experience for two Vermont governors, Madeleine M. Kunin and Howard Dean, as well as nearly nine years of financial, legal, and administrative management experience for several departments of Vermont state government. His direct campaign experiences include a semester of full-time field work in several states for the 1984 Mondale presidential campaign and his general election loss to the 20-year incumbent for county prosecutor in 2002.

Awards and Honors
    At the twenty-fifth annual “Woman of the Year” celebration, sponsored by Oklahoma City’s Journal Record, Carl Albert Center Director and Curator Cindy Simon Rosenthal was honored as one of fifty women making a difference in Oklahoma.
In addition, the Center’s highly acclaimed program, N.E.W. (National Education for Women’s) Leadership, coordinated by Hannah Brenner, was honored for the fourth year in a row by the Journal Record as a program making a difference for women in Oklahoma.
    Several of the Carl Albert Center’s undergraduate students recently received University of Oklahoma scholarships and awards:
•    Benjamin Gravley – the Robert E. and Mary B. Sturgis Scholarship
•    Kathryn McLaughlin – the Horace C. Peterson Scholarship
•    Jenna Morey – the President’s Award for Outstanding Sophomores
•    Benjamin Wilson – the Benson Memorial Scholarship
Four of our students were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa this fall: Shuting Chen, Kathryn McLaughlin, Olufunmike Owoso, and Carolyn Pickthorn.  
    In addition, Carl Albert Fellow Walt Wilson won the George B. Williams Memorial Award for his outstanding graduate research paper, “Economic Inequality and Democracy.”

Carl Albert Center Congressional Archives
    The archivists are currently converting many inventories, formerly only searchable on an in-house database, so that the inventories can be uploaded to the archives’ web site.  Users can now go online to search the contents of folders for important topics, names of individuals, and organizations for the majority of the collections available in the archives. In addition, the inventories to many smaller photograph collections have recently been added to the website. The availability of a Google search engine on the archives home page at http://www.ou.edu/special/albertctr/archives enables researchers to search only the Carl Albert Center’s manuscript and photograph collections.
    Erin Sloan joined the staff of the Carl Albert Center as an archivist in August 2005 after working in the Center's archives for two years as a graduate assistant. She recently completed a master’s degree in library and information studies at OU. In addition to assisting researchers, Erin processes new collections and creates exhibits.  In 2004 she compiled memorabilia from several collections to commemorate the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969.  A second exhibit, “Divided District?” looks for evidence of polarized politics in Oklahoma’s Fourth Congressional District. The exhibit was created in conjunction with the 2005 Rothbaum Lecture and was displayed prominently at the lectures and other special events that week.  Erin has now designed an online version of this exhibit, which can be viewed at http://www.ou.edu/special/albertctr/archives/divideddistrict.html.

Recent Publications
    Cindy Simon Rosenthal, Carl Albert Fellow M. Lynsey Morris, and Undergraduate Research Fellow Jamie Martinez have published their collaborative research, “Who’s on First and What’s on Second? Assessing Interest Group Strategies on Title IX,” in Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal, vol. 13, no. 2 (Fall 2004). Professor Rosenthal has also published a book chapter, “Women Leading Legislatures,” in Women and Elective Office, 2nd ed., edited by Sue Thomas and Clyde Wilcox (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), and an article,  “Local Politics: A Different Front in the Culture War?” in The Forum: 3(2), Article 5, http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol3/iss2/art5.
    Glen S. Krutz has published “Issues and Institutions: ‘Winnowing’ in the U.S. Congress” in the American Journal of Political Science, vol. 49, no. 2 (April 2005) and “The Effect of HAVA on Late-to-Innovate States: External Influence on Election Reform in Arizona and Illinois” in Publius: The Journal of Federalism, vol. 35, no. 4.  He has also co-authored with Robert E. Bohrer II an article, “Change and Stability in the Devolved Party Systems of the United Kingdom,” which has been published in Party Politics, vol. 11, no. 6.

Former Fellows
    West Texas A&M University recognized Dave Rausch, associate professor of political science, with their annual Distance Learning Innovation Award, acknowledging him as a “dedicated and skilled online educator” who “continues to keep the focus on student learning.”
    Karen Kedrowski, Professor and Chair of Political Science at Winthrop University, and Winthrop colleague Marilyn Sarow, Associate Professor of Mass Communication, have signed a contract with University of Illinois Press for publication of their book Cancer Activism.  Kedrowski has also been offered a contract with Praeger/Greenwood Press to publish a book entitled Breastfeeding Rights in the United States, which she co-authored with Winthrop colleague Michael Lipscomb.
    L. Marvin Overby, Professor of Political Science at University of Missouri, has taken a year’s leave to return to Nanjing, China as the Fei Yi-Ming Visiting Professor of Comparative Politics for Johns Hopkins University – Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies.
    Nancy Bednar moved from her home state of California this fall to a tenure-track position at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas.
    Mary Scribner Wallace, ranking in the top 5 percent of her class, has been awarded the Doctor of Law degree with Honors from Emory University School of Law. She has been admitted to the Georgia Bar Association and is now a full-time associate with the law firm Charles W. Miller, P.C. in Columbus.

In Memoriam:  Lori D. Lester
1956 – 2005
    Lori Lester entered the Carl Albert Center’s graduate fellowship program in 1985 and was the first woman that the Center sent to Washington, where she participated in the APSA Congressional Fellowship program, serving in the office of Rep. Beverly B. Byron (D-Md.). While in Washington, Lori conducted research for her doctoral dissertation, “Congressional Budgeting for Defense: Theory, Process, and Outcomes,” and completed her degree in 1993. She was a senior resources manager for the Department of Defense for many years and then worked as a freelance writer after her retirement.  Lori died on September 3, 2005, after a long struggle with cancer.


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