In this age of declining trust in government, apathy toward participation in public affairs, and information overload, developing "citizenship skills" is a fundamental challenge to liberal arts education. The traditional approach of undergraduate education in political science is no longer adequate because of rapid changes in the availability of electronic information. Students are highly attuned to the information age but our classroom approach has not kept up. We seek to address this gap through more effective use of computing technology with funding for equipment for a departmental computing laboratory that will focus on undergraduate education for citizenship. Four departmental courses have been selected (Political Science 205 - Political Science as a Social Science, Political Science 303 - Public Policy Formation. Political Science 422 - Global Environmental Problems, and Political Science 407 - International Conflict) in which computer technology will be used to provide opportunities for political science undergraduates to obtain citizenship skills in the following areas; accessing information, acquiring information,, analyzing information, understanding the political and economic context, and making collective choices. The Department is in the process of constructing the computer laboratory. When equipped with 18 Pentium computers, a local area network, and an SVGA RGB projector, the computer laboratory will provide a flexible learning and teaching environment for the development of citizenship skills for political science undergraduates. The department is developing methodologies to evaluate this project and will have support for evaluation and dissemination from other units on campus such as the Center for Instructional Development and Research.
