A Different Kind of Party Animal

The Wall Street Journal recently featured Bowdoin Colledge senior Meredith Segal in an article about a new type of "party animals" - students who skips spring break in a vacation locale in favor of volunteering with presidential campaigns. Segal is national director of Students for Barack Obama.

News Sources: "Change You Can Xerox"

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has accused rival Barack Obama of political plagiarism during a live televised debate. But Obama brushed off the accusation that he represented "change you can Xerox", saying it was just part of "silly season" politics. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges and universities, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Stephen Medvic - Assistant Professor of Government, Franklin & Marshall College - Medvic has provided political analysis for numerous media outlets including CNN, The Washington Post and Fox News On-line. He is the co-editor of Shades of Gray: Perspectives on Campaign Ethics.

David Schwartz - Associate Professor of Philosophy, Randolph College - Schwartz's research focuses on the relation between ethical values and public policy.

John Wilcox - Professor of Religious Studies, Manhattan College - Wilcox is the founder and director of the Center for Professional Ethics.

News Sources: Race, Gender and the Democrats

On a year when Democrats are buoyed by the prospect of retaking the White House, tensions are mounting in the white-hot race between the camp who want to elect the first woman president and the one that wants to elect the first black president. Can the wounds be healed or are the Democrats headed for a scorched-earth campaign between two constituencies that are core part of its base? Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Alice Almond Shrock - Professor of History, Earlham College - Shrock has devoted years of research to the role and influences of women in America's political development. She has been resident scholar with the U.S. House and the British House of Commons. She is widely interviewed and has lent analysis to National Public Radio and Voice of America.

Marcus Pohlmann -Professor of Political Science, Rhodes College - Pohlmann is author of Racial Politics at the Crossroads and Black Politics in Conservative America.

Stephen Medvic - Assistant Professor of Government, Franklin & Marshall College -
Medvic has provided political analysis for numerous media outlets including CNN, The Washington Post and Fox News On-line. He is the co-editor of Shades of Gray: Perspectives on Campaign Ethics.

Oprah and Obama

Oprah Winfrey's coming to town for Senator Barack Obama, scheduling a three-state tour beginning Dec. 8. Ms. Winfrey, who has been fiercely protective of her extraordinary brand, is dipping into presidential politics for the first time with a visit to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic, can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Barbara Trish - Associate Professor of Political Science, Grinnell College - Since joining Grinnell, Trish has examined and researched the Iowa Caucus system as well as the "coordinated campaign" efforts in the Midwest. She has served as president of the Iowa Conference of Political Scientists (2000-2001) and is active in party and campaign politics.

Keith Reeves - Associate Professor, Swarthmore College - The Director of Swarthmore's Center for Social and Policy Studies, Reeves is an expert on the impact of racial politics on electoral behavior. He is the author of Voting Hopes or Fears?: White Voters, Black Candidates, and Racial Politics in America.

Ronald Lembo - Associate Professor of Sociology, Amherst College - Lembo teaches and writes about the sociology of mass media and mass culture, news and entertainment systems, media corporations. His newest book is Thinking Through Television: Viewing Practices and the Social Limits to Power.

News Sources: Talking about Nuclear Weapons

Democrat Hillary Clinton recently chastised presidential rival Barack Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in the war on terror. Reporters subsequently found that Clinton had declared that nuclear weapons were "off the table" in an interview about Iran a year earlier. Should the use of nuclear weapons ever be put "off the table?" Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Andrew A. Latham - Associate Professor of Political Science, Macalester College - Latham specializes in international conflict and security issues and is an expert on arms production and the proliferation of arms, including weapons of mass destruction. He has researched nuclear weapons in India and recently completed a report for the Canadian government on India's nuclear policy. Latham is knowledgeable about the changing nature of war, Iraq and the Persian Gulf War as well as the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Michael T. Klare - Professor of Peace and World Security Studies, Hampshire College - Klare is the author of Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws and American Arms Supermarket. He is the Director of the Five College (Hampshire, Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke Colleges and the University of Massachusetts) Program in Peace and World Security Studies. An expert on world security, Klare testifies regularly on arms issues before international organizations, including the United Nations. He is on the Committee on International Security Studies at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Scott Plous - Professor of Psychology, Wesleyan University - Plous is the author of The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making, and has conducted research on the psychology of the nuclear arms race.