Political Science Department
Each year, the Charles M. Tidmarch Prize is awarded to the student who has written the best senior thesis in Political Science.
Having earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins, “Charley” Tidmarch was a member of the department of Political Science from 1970 until his death 1993, serving as chair in the 1980s. He taught courses on congress, political parties, the media, and public policy. Together with Professor William Daniels, he was the co-founder of the Political Science Department’s Term in Washington, D.C. He also founded the department’s chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, and served on the executive board of the national Pi Sigma Alpha organization. During the 1978-1979 academic year he served as a Congressional Fellow of the American Political Science Association. He spent the 1986-1987 academic year as a visiting professor at Princeton University. He was also a musician, performing in a band named “Charley T and the Undergrads.” Union College awarded Professor Tidmarch the Faculty Meritorious Service Award in 1993.
Professor Tidmarch was beloved by his students and his colleagues, many of whom made generous contributions to keep the prize active during the years following Charley’s death, and who recently have contributed to endow permanently the monetary award that accompanies the prize. The department is grateful for the support of Charley’s widow, the late Laura Tidmarch, Professor William Daniels, and Professor Clifford Brown, who contributed to keep the prize alive for the first fifteen years of the prize’s existence. The permanent endowment of this prize was made by possible by contributions from Charley’s colleagues (Clifford Brown, William Daniels, Charles and Toby Gati, Byron Nichols, Robert Sharlet, Donald Thurston, Jim and Jean Underwood, and Terry Weiner); Political Science department alumni (John Cahill, Austin Cheng, Jeremy Dibbell, Eric Garofano, Jordana Mallach, Jennifer Miller, Sean Mulkerne, Nathan Seder, and Jacqueline Weiss); and Charley’s former students Alan Reisch and Judy Dein. We are especially grateful to Alan Reisch, Judy Dein, and William Daniels for their very generous contributions and matching grants that enabled us to exceed our goal.
Recent Prize Winners
2023 Michael Rosenbaum, Liberty through the looking glass: Comparative democratic backsliding in response to the French Revolution (1789-1806)
2022 Jonathan P. Carew, Appraising the Deliberative Assembly: The Prospects for Parliamentary Democracy in the Thought of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Georg Lukács
2021 Tyler Greenwood, A Battle to Triumph over Trauma: Addressing Past Experiences and Mental Health Following Resettlement in the United States
2020 Carly Ristaino, "With Great Power ...": Post 9/11 Politics in Superhero Comics, TV, and Film
2019 Irving Cortez-Martinez, Mexico: Neoliberalism, Popular Grievances, and the Rise of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
2018 Christopher Yao, Deference to Deference: Examining the Relationship between the Courts and the Political Branches Through Judicial Deference and the Chevron Doctrine
2017 Emma Stein, Breaking Down, Breaking News: Television’s Institutional Failures and Today’s Ramifications
2016 Emily Myers, War and Women Wielding Power: Lessons from Burundi, Liberia, and Chad
2015 Karlee Bergendorff, The Smiling, The Sick, and the Suffering: Snapshots of Syrian Displacement
2014 Peri Moskowitz, The Somatic Sex
2013 Ariana Abrams, Government Policy and Moral Hazard in the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis
2012 Rachel Mayer, The Politics of Sex: Analyzing the Relationship between the State and Gender, Identity and Desire
2011 Alex Brockwehl, Toward Democratic “No-Rule”: A Conceptual Response to Contemporary Challenges to Political Freedom