The Georgia Political Science Association (GPSA) is the professional association for political scientists in Georgia, United States. Founded in 1968, the GPSA holds an annual conference in Savannah, Georgia in November. Conference participants are from Georgia, other U.S. states, and overseas. Although political scientists are in the majority, the conference is definitely interdisciplinary. Participants have included political scientists, historians, economists, humanists, sociologists, criminologists, anthropologists, public administrators, philosophers, students, interested non-academics and many others. Currently, the membership numbers around 200 political scientists teaching in Georgia. The GPSA publishes a refereed online proceedings of the conference.
Both the University System of Georgia Board of Regents Academic Advisory Committee for Political Science and the European Union Studies Certificate Steering Committee traditionally meet during the conference.
The GPSA Board of Directors consists of seven officers and eight at-large board members. The GPSA Vice President and program chair organizes the annual conference program from proposals received by July 1 of each year. Panels and roundtables are assembled from the accepted proposals and individual papers. Seven sessions of four concurrent panels each are spread over two days. Four to six presentations are assigned to each panel. All interested persons may submit proposals.
The GPSA has several awards. The McBrayer Award and an accompanying $500.00 cash prize is awarded in years when a paper of outstanding scholarship within the academic discipline of political science is presented in its entirety at the conference. The Donald T. Wells Award is given annually to a member for recognition of outstanding service to the Georgia Political Science Association. The Roger N. Pajari Undergraduate Paper Award is given annually to the best undergraduate paper submitted to meet the requirements of an undergraduate political science course taught in the state of Georgia and nominated by the professor teaching the course.
GPSA members participate in the activities of the American Political Science Association, Southern Political Science Association and the American Society for Public Administration. Question in Politics (QiP) is the scholarly journal of the Georgia Political Science Association. The first volume of QiP was published in 2013 and this journal is the continuation of the earlier Proceedings of the Georgia Political Science Association.
Past Presidents
Elmo Roberts, 1973 James McBrayer, 1974 Frank Smith, 1975 Ralph Hemphill, 1976 G.J. Foster, 1977 Donald T. Wells, 1978 Larry Elowitz, 1979 Raymond L. Chambers, 1980 Ethel A. Cullinan, 1981 Donald Fairchild, 1982 Ben DeJanes, 1983 Lane VanTassel, 1984 James Russell, 1985 Loren Peter Beth, 1986 Roger Pajari, 1987 Diane Fowlkes, 1988 Gale Harrison, 1989 Larry Taylor, 1990 Thomas Lauth, 1991 George H. Cox Jr., 1992 Joe Trachtenberg, 1993 Sandra Thornton, 1994 James Peterson, 1995 Willoughby Jarrell, 1996 Glenn Abney, 1997 Jan Mabie, 1998 Lois Duke Whitaker, 1999 Michael Baun, 2000 Charles S. Bullock, III, 2001 Gwen Wood, 2002 Michael Digby, 2003 Adam Stone, 2004 Scott E. Buchanan, 2005 Sudha Ratan, 2006 Karen McCurdy, 2007 Chris Grant, 2008 James LaPlant, 2009 Carol Pierannunzi, 2010 Greg Domin, 2011 Thomas E. Rotnem, 2012 Sandy Reinke, 2013 Unknown, 2014 James LaPlant, 2015 Tamra Ortgies-Young, 2016 Craig Albert, 2017 Matthew Hipps, 2018 Unknown, 2019 Keith Lee, 2020 Robert C. Harding, 2021 Karen Owen, 2022 Joseph Robbins, 2023
External links Georgia Political Science Association GPSA Board of Directors Criminal Justice Association of Georgia Proceedings of the annual conference Donald T. Wells Outstanding Service Award Roger N. Pajari Undergraduate Paper Award Call for Proposals and Presentations Questions in Politics (QiP) American Society for Public Administration Southern Political Science Association American Political Science Association European Union Center of the University System of Georgia USG Academic Advisory Committees GPSA Acronym Georgia Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration Journal of Politics