Notes From Class

John C. Davis

In the fall of 2005, I transferred to the University of Arkansas. That semester, I had the good fortune of being enrolled in Dr. Janine Parry’s Arkansas Politics course. Dr. Parry retired last spring, and it is safe to say she was a favorite professor for hundreds of U of A alumni. That class had a significant impact on my academic interests as a student and on my career. Over the years, I taught the course a few times myself while on faculty at the University of Arkansas at Monticello but had not yet done so at U of A since joining the faculty in 2023. Two decades after my time as a student in Dr. Parry’s class, I found myself teaching Arkansas Politics at my alma mater.

The class was comprised of 40 students of whom approximately one-half to two-thirds were Arkansas natives. We covered topics such as the history, politics, and machinations of the state government institutions, the state constitution, county government, partisan patterns, the political behavior of Arkansans, and the recent partisan shift. We concluded the class with a mock state constitutional convention. We also heard from former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson who graciously discussed his experiences in state politics and public service. It was a very fun class to teach.

Some takeaways:

1. These students were bright—I mean, impressively bright.

2. They were sincerely interested in Arkansas politics and government (or, at least, they kindly acted as though they were).

3. They were troubled by the lack of bipartisanship and the general ugliness of our current politics.

4. They are problem-solvers who are not tied to a single party’s worldview.

5. They want Arkansans to be more civically engaged and better informed and are interested in helping make that happen.

6. They are political realists, but after spending time with them, you can’t help but feel even more optimistic about the future of our state.

The end-of-the-year assignment was a research paper on a topic chosen by each student that was related to Arkansas politics, or a blog-/newspaper column-style report and annotated bibliography. While many students chose to go the traditional paper route, a portion of them attempted the blog/newspaper column project. This was a particularly impressive group of students, and they produced excellent work.

Among the students who submitted a blog post/column, a few expressed interest in having their work published on this blog, so stay tuned for future posts and bylines by these Arkansas Politics students.