News & Announcements

Submit Your News to the WPSA Newsletter
Recipients of WPSA Annual Awards Announced
Changes in the WPSA Executive Council
WPSA Executive Director to Retire
Call for Proposals for New Virtual Communities

Submit Your News to the WPSA Newsletter

The editors of The Western, the official newsletter of the WPSA, are seeking submissions. If you have a new journal article, a new book, a professional accomplishment that you would like to share with the association, they would be delighted to include it in the newsletter.

The newsletter is being entirely redesigned. Rather than being produced in pdf format, the newsletter will be housed entirely online. The online version will allow the newsletter to be updated more frequently and accessed more easily. The deadline for submitting to the first edition of the newsletter was on May 15. However, feel free to send the editors the news of your accomplishments whenever you can and it can be included in forthcoming editions.

The new site will allow for links and photos; please make sure to share those with the editorial team. In order to make sure everyone has a chance to have their announcements highlighted, the editors ask that you limit the number of submissions each month to three. To submit material, please click on the link in the right-hand column.

Once the new newsletter goes live, we will be announcing it widely. If you miss the announcement, you can read the newsletter here: https://www.wpsanet.org/the-western.

If you have any questions, you can email the editorial team at [email protected]. The newsletter editors are Michael Artime, Pacific Lutheran University; Benjamin Gonzalez O'Brien, San Diego State University; and Chase Porter, California Baptist University. 

Recipients of WPSA Annual Awards Announced

The WPSA is proud to announce the recipients of the association's annual awards for 2026. The Betty Moulds Lifetime Service Award was given to Luis Fraga, the association's president from 1997 to 1998. Fraga is the Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science, Notre Dame University. The Moulds Awards Committee highly praised Fraga's long commitment to the association, writing: "For more than thirty-five years, Professor Fraga has contributed his time, leadership, and dedication to the Western Political Science Association in numerous roles. He served as president of the association from 1997–1998 after previously serving on the Executive Council and chairing the Committee on the Status of Chicana/os in the Profession. In addition to these leadership roles, Professor Fraga has served the association repeatedly as a section chair and program chair, and has long been an active participant at the annual meeting as a presenter, panel chair, and discussant. Throughout his career, he devoted substantial time and energy to ensuring the vitality and inclusiveness of the association, leaving an enduring impact on generations of scholars and colleagues."

Other award recipients include Kim Geron, California State University East Bay, who received the Don T. Nakanishi Award for Distinguished Scholarship and Service in Asian Pacific American Politics, and Erik Severson, University of British Columbia, who received the WPSA Best Paper Award, for his paper: "Democracy and the Politics of Attention."

A complete list of the recipients can be found at: https://wpsanet.memberclicks.net/past-awards.

Changes in the WPSA Executive Council

Carrie Currie, Texas Christian University, assumed the presidency of the WPSA at the end of the conference in San Diego. She will serve as president through the conference in Denver, Colorado, next March. Christopher Stout, University of California at San Diego, is the program chair for the Denver meeting.

The following individuals began serving on the council as of March 2026: Desiree Melonas, University of California, Riverside; Christopher Harris, University of California, Irvine; Natasha Altema McNeely, University of North Texas; and Hope Dewell Gentry, Montana State University – Billings. The terms of the following Executive Council members concluded immediately prior to the meeting: Ron Hayduk, San Francisco State University; Anand Commissiong, California State University Long Beach; LaDella Levy, College of Southern Nevada; and Yalidy Matos, Rutgers University. The association thanks these outgoing members for their valuable service.

In addition, a new slate of candidates was elected at the WPSA Business Meeting in April to serve on the Executive Council. Celeste Montoya, University of Colorado Boulder, was elected to serve as the Program Chair for the 2028 conference in San Diego. At the end of the conference, she will become the WPSA president through the 2029 conference in Austin. Natalie Masuoka, University of California Los Angeles, was reelected to serve as Treasurer for another three-year terms. Four association members were elected as regional councilors, serving from March 2027 to February 2030:  Anna Sampaio, Santa Clara University; Zahra Ahmed, Saint Mary’s College of California; Christina Bejarano, Texas Woman’s University; and Anita Chari, University of Oregon. Paru Shah, Rutgers University, was elected to serve the remainder of the term for Christopher Stout, who was elected Program Chair last year. Shah will serve through February 2028.

WPSA Executive Director to Retire 

WPSA Executive Director Richard Clucas has told the Executive Council that he will be retiring from the association in September 2027. The council has appointed a committee to consider replacement ideas and issues. This committee is expected to present a proposal to the council at its April 2, 2026, meeting on how best to proceed in filling this position and conducting a search. Louis DeSipio, University of California, Irvine, is chairing the committee.

Clucas has been involved with the association since the 1990 annual conference in Newport Beach, California, which is also the year in which he received his PhD in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He served as local arrangements chair for the 2004 conference in Portland, Oregon, and as the Legislative Section Chair for the 2005 meeting in Oakland, California. He was an executive council member from 2006 to 2009 before being hired as executive director in training in September 2008, a position in which he shadowed Betty Moulds, the preceding executive director. He became the association's executive director in September, 2009. His retirement will come after 18 years in the position. Clucas is retiring as Professor of Political Science at Portland State University in June 2026.

For information about the current executive director position, feel free to contact Clucas at [email protected].

Call for Proposals for New Virtual Communities

The Virtual Communities Program Committee now accepts proposals for new virtual communities on an ongoing basis.  The committee welcomes proposals from all subfields of political science and related fields, especially from areas currently underrepresented in the VC Program (e.g., comparative politics, international relations, American politics). More information on virtual communities and for a list of communities see here.

As part of the membership benefits, Full Members of the association can join any VC Community.

If you are interested in proposing a new community, contact the chair of the committee, Eraldo Souza dos Santos at [email protected].