67th Annual Student Conference on U.S. Affairs

Hi Poli Students!

The Political Science Department is accepting applications to the the 67th Annual Student Conference on U.S. Affairs (SCUSA) at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York. This is an excellent opportunity to get involved in international and security debates with a large number of students and experts from around the country.

Every year, the Department sends two students to represent UMBC at this conference. The Department covers registration fees and transportation to West Point, while the conference organizers provide room and board while there. If you are interested, please send a brief (one paragraph) letter of interest, including why you would like to go, what makes you qualified to represent the Department and your GPA to: Dr. Brian Grodsky, bgrodsky@umbc.edu. All applications must be received by September 18.

For more information, see below.

On behalf of Colonel Cindy Jebb, the head of the Department of Social Sciences, I would like to extend an invitation to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County to send two student delegates to participate in the 67th Annual Student Conference on U.S. Affairs (SCUSA) at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York. The conference meets from November 4th through November 7th, 2015.

West Point hosts SCUSA every fall. It is the oldest and largest undergraduate conference of its type in the world. Approximately 200 undergraduate students from over 100 colleges and universities worldwide attend SCUSA. Throughout the conference, the student delegates and cadets debate and formulate policy recommendations that realistically model American strategic responses to significant national and global challenges. The highlights of the four-day conference include the opening senior panel discussion on the evening of November 4th, an evening keynote banquet address, four roundtable sessions, and a closing-report session on November 7th. Recent keynote speakers have included Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, Ambassador Thomas Pickering, Dr. Leslie Gelb, Admiral James Stavridis, Dr. Rajiv Shah, and Ms. Susan Eisenhower.

Our organizing theme this year is "Confronting Inequality: Wealth, Rights, and Power."  We challenge students to consider how inequality, in all its manifestations, influences US foreign Policy. Which inequalities are likely to increase and which might decrease as global development proceeds?  Are some forms of inequality inevitable or justifiable, and do any serve U.S. national interests?   How should U.S. foreign policy respond to an increasingly prosperous world in which material wealth is unequally distributed?

Take Care!