October 24, 2022

Departmental Spotlight: Political Science

Honors alumni, students and faculty recently spoke with the political science department’s news team about their participation in mentored learning experiences beyond the classroom, celebrating Rachel Cichowski as a winner of UW’s 2021 Research Mentor Award.

My philosophy at its core is about empowering students to ask big real world questions and to build their confidence in acquiring the social science tools to explore and find the answers. I enjoy the research discovery process immensely and making this process accessible to undergraduates at a major global public university is a highlight of my career.

Rachel Cichowski

Faculty like Rachel, who mentor Huskies through Departmental Honors projects and other forms of research/experiential learning, are vital to our University’s healthy undergraduate ecosystem.

As Matthew Chang, who graduated in 2022 with Departmental Honors in law, societies and justice puts it: “Prof. Cichowski challenged me to think critically and rigorously about the major problems facing judiciaries in liberal democracies today and did not hold back from asking us difficult questions in class, the most memorable of which was a small, tightly-knit seminar research course. The lessons I learned have stuck with me and are as applicable as ever during my studies in law school.”

Please, click here to learn more about Professor Chichowski’s philosophy and impact.