Dr. Jim Butterfield has received a Fulbright Grant for 2009-2010. He will be conducting field research on small business associations, and in particular, their relationship with local and provincial government agencies in a time of weak democratic institutions, in Saratov, Russia. In addition, he will teach comparative politics in the spring at Saratov State University.

Dr. Priscilla Lambert, with her co-author Druscilla Scribner, Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, has been awarded a National Science Foundation collaborative research grant for their project, Gender and Constitutions: A Comparative Analysis of the Effect of Gender Provisions. Gender provisions are increasingly common in national constitutions, however, little comparative research has been done to test whether the gendering of constitutions is a good deal for women s equality. Lambert and Scribner will combine a large cross-national comparison of 100 countries with more detailed country case studies on provisions, laws and enforcement to trace out whether and how gender provisions contribute to women s political and economic standing.

Dr. Mark Hurwitz has received a grant from the Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society to research the history of the selection system for justices to the Michigan Supreme Court. Michigan's system of selecting its justices is unlike any other in the United States, whereby candidates are nominated at political party conventions, who then run in a nonpartisan general elections. Hurwitz plans to analyze the constitutional and statutory history of this unique system in Michigan as well as electoral outcomes resulting from this selection system.

Graduate students: the application period for the 2010 Presidential Management Fellowship competition is October 1-15.