If it is time for an external review—or if the dean announces you are having one anyway—it almost certain that your first reaction as a department chair will be that this is bad news and that the red coats are coming! After all, at very least an external review is going to result in a considerable amount of extra work. And the review can be a moment of what a panel member who had served as a dean termed a time of “extreme danger”; a bad review can really damage a departments standing and prospects with the dean and university administration more generally. However at the 2009 Annual Meeting a distinguished group of political scientists (Evelyn Huber, Stephen Majeski, John Woolley, Michael Kraft, and Gretchen Bauer) chaired by Graham Wilson of the APSA Departmental Service Committee urged chairs to be positive. Having been on both the receiving and giving sides of the review process, panel members uniformly concluded that it can be a very positive experience for departments and their chairs.

A preview of some of the articles that will be published in the April issue.

Eight new members of the APSA Council have been elected in APSA's fifth contested election in recent years. The new council members are: Cristina Beltrán, Haverford College; Yun-han Chu, Academia Sinica/National Taiwan University; Mark A. Graber, University of Maryland; Evelyne Huber, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Thomas E. Mann, Brookings Institution; Joseph P. McCormick II, Pennsylvania State University, York; Julie Novkov, State University of New York, Albany; and S. Laurel Weldon, Purdue University. Mark Blasius was not elected.

This list celebrates the generous contributions of our members in giving to one or more of the following programs from 1996 through 2009: APSA awards, programs, the Congressional Fellowship Program, and the Centennial Campaign. APSA thanks these donors for ensuring that the benefits of membership and the influence of the profession will extend far into the future. APSA will update and print this list annually in the January issue of PS.