Political science professor keeps on giving to students

A single voice, excited and with a hint of an accent, resounded loudly in a classroom. The voice got louder as the discussion progressed, a relaxed brow became furrowed and hands were thrown into the air for added emphasis. Edward Carmines, a professor of political science, was teaching the class about criticisms of psychological interpretations of President Woodrow Wilson, and his voice showed his captivation. The class simply took in the information, almost immune to his voice fluctuations and flushed face. His students acknowledged that Carmines, an internationally known political scientist who has been at IU for 30 years, was well versed in the topic at hand. \nProfessor Edward Carmines was drawn to Indiana for, in his words, "a job." He grew up in Hampton, Virginia where he played for his high school basketball team and won the award for most deserving player after his team finished second in the state. After high school, he went on to get his undergraduate degree at Old Dominion University. Carmines attained his master's degree at the College of William and Mary and finally his Ph.D. at the State University of New York-Buffalo in 1975. In his search for a career, Carmines came to Indiana University as a visiting assistant professor. There was soon an opening on campus, and Carmines obtained a position that gave him a tenure contract. This contract was the beginning of Carmines' long relationship with the University. The professor, along with his high school sweetheart turned wife, Ethel, and 17-year-old daughter, Paige Alexandra, has adopted Bloomington as his home. Carmines has been on site to see the campus undergo many changes and developments throughout the years.\n"When I got here, people were still talking about the war protests, though much of the action had died down," he said. "Things were still in the air about Vietnam, and many students on campus were into the topic." \nCarmines also came at a time when the basketball team had just won the NCAA tournament. \n"Students were crazy here because it had been a long time since they had won," Carmines said. "There were no big riots, but there was lots of celebrating." \nAdditionally, the School of Public and Environmental Affairs program had recently opened and was beginning to get off the ground, a change Carmines has been able to monitor as the program has developed over the past three decades.\nWhen it comes to interesting themes Carmines has seen in his classes, the professor has been interested to find that, as a group, IU students have never been wrong when it comes to predicting the winner of presidential elections. He has taught courses during election years about the campaigns. An assignment would be handed in weekly, indicating who students felt had the best week of campaigning. At the conclusion of the class, the weekly results were added, and the winner was found from those results. In five elections, IU students have been in accord with the rest of the nation.\nIt is these students who have helped to keep such a critically acclaimed professor on the roster. \n"I have had several opportunities to leave, but I have always found the University and students to be very supportive of the work I do," Carmines said. \nHis work in American politics, focusing on public opinion, elections and political parties, is undoubtedly one of the reasons that Carmines has become such an accredited member of the faculty. He chaired the Department of Political Science from 1990 to 1997 and has co-authored many books, including "Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics" and "Reaching Beyond Race." Carmines won the Gladys M. Kammerer award for these two of these publications, and is the only person to win such an award twice. Besides those two works, his other publications have won him numerous awards at conventions and conferences, Carmines was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University during the 2000/01 academic year, and in 2003, he was given a Phi Beta Kappa award from his alma mater, the College of William and Mary. All of these successes have led Carmines to become the author of some of the most widely quoted works in political science. \nDespite all of his accomplishments and prestige, some know the professor well enough to realize that even the brightest of people cannot master it all. Professor Marjorie Hershey, a colleague of Carmines' for thirty years, made light of the fact that Carmines just recently figured out how to use some computer programs. \n"I think that we all enjoy the fact that although he is a high-powered, internationally known politician, he hadn't even learned to use e-mail until a few years ago," Hershey said. "When he finally did learn it, he joked that when you did get an e-mail from him, it was actually from him and not his secretary."\nCarmine's plan for the future is to keep doing what he is doing in the political science department. Currently, he is researching social and cultural issues, especially abortion, and keeps up on the latest political developments by consulting his 86 year old mother-in-law, whom he said "has definite opinions on all things political." In two years, a sabbatical in Washington, D.C., is on his agenda, where Carmines plans to "observe the government up close." In retrospect of his career thus far, he finds that IU, namely the students, have not changed much over the decades. In thirty years, he said, "the campus has developed while the students are basically similar in attitude." \nYet one thing Carmines would advise them to change is their involvement with the campus. \n"Music, plays, movies, political events ... this is a diverse campus with so many activities," he said. "It is important to take advantage of that and explore culturally and politically." \nAs for his most important suggestion to IU students, Carmines said with a smile on his face, "Study, of course." \n-- Contact Staff Writer Kimberly Laughlin at klaughl@indiana.edu.