Committee Members (Kristen Moore, Leonie Huddie, and Susan Clark)from the Task Force on Mentoring were instrumental in securingfunding for a recent APSA workshop held on Friday March 5, 2004 todiscuss the career advancement of women in political science. Theattendees included 25 political scientists from around the countryas well as National Science Foundation program officers. Theworkshop was funded in part by an NSF Small Grant for ExploratoryResearch (SGER).

APSA is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2004 Small ResearchGrant competition. This year, awards averaging $1,636 went to 11scholars. The Small Research Grant Program supports research in allfields of political science. The intent of these grants is tosupport the research of political scientists who are not employed atPh.D.-granting institutions. For more information on the program andapplication procedures, please visit the APSA web site<www.apsanet.org/opps/apsagrants.cfm>.

The Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at theUniversity of Oklahoma seeks applicants for its Visiting ScholarsProgram, which provides financial assistance to researchers workingat the Center's archives. Awards of $500-$1,000 are granted forreimbursement of travel and lodging. The Center's collections aredescribed at<www.ou.edu/special/albertctr/archives/>. TheVisiting Scholars Program is open to all applicants, though emphasisis given to those pursing postdoctoral research in history,political science, or other fields. For more information, contactchanneman@ou.edu.

The American Political Science Association and a consortium ofscholarly organizations have developed Political Research Online(PROL), a new resource for political scientists. Made possiblethrough generous funding by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, PROL isa comprehensive electronic archive of pre-published research inpolitical science.

House and Senate Budgetary Committees are set to soon unveilallocations for 13 appropriations subcommittees for thediscretionary portion of federal spending. In an election year, andwith the national debt reaching previously unfathomed depths,experts do not expect much in the way of non-defense discretionaryspending. In the House, presumably any proposed increases will haveto be hashed out, perhaps leaving the National Endowment for theArts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) outin the cold. Experts expect that if the NEA and NEH are left outthat increases will be proposed on the floor for the agencies.Congress is looking for myriad solutions to quickly appropriatefunds for FY2005. Among these are potential proposal is one topresent an early, full omnibus bill and one to group the 13appropriation bills into three or four “mini-omnibus” bills.Proposals akin to that offered this year for NEH funding wouldappear much more difficult to secure this year.

In a meeting of APSA's international committee in September 2003,APSA President Susanne Rudolph suggested the need for a “mutualde-parochialization” in our knowledge practices. She meant a closerinteraction between American and non-American political scientistsand a greater cross-fertilization of their substantive andmethodological concerns. Margaret Levi, the President-elect of APSA,also emphasized the need for a greater internationalization ofAmerican political science, with special emphasis paid to theso-called international public realm.