Department of Political Science

Political Science
1414 Social Sciences Building
267 19th Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Phone: 612-624-4144
Fax: 612-626-7599
E-mail: polisci@umn.edu

Chair: Raymond D. Duvall

2007 Math and Stats Refresher Workshop

As you know, there is a well-established vein of research that employs mathematical reasoning to derive generalizations about politics. There also is a large body of political research that is based on the statistical analysis of political data. Each volume of our top-ranked journals-for example, American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Politics, International Organization, Journal of Politics, and World Politics- contain many pieces that employ mathematical and(or) statistical reasoning. Even if you do not plan to produce such research, if you want to be a critical consumer of work on institutions, political behavior, political economy, international conflict, and other subjects, you should be educated about these forms of reasoning. To this end, our Department offers core, advanced, and research seminars in political modeling and methodology. In order to help students make the transition into these courses, like other major departments in the United States , we offer a noncredit workshop on selected mathematical and statistical topics for incoming and current students. The workshop will be held for 2.5-5 hours each day for seven days at the end of August (before classes begin). If you have questions about this workshop, please contact the field head, Professor John Freeman ( freeman@polisci.umn.edu )

MATHEMATICS AND STATISTICS WORKSHOP

  • Morning Sessions : 9:00-11:30am
  • Afternoon Sessions : 1:00-3:30pm
  • Location: To be announced

UNIVERSITYOF MINNESOTA , POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT 

  • August 20 (Monday-Morning) Modeling Politics: An Introduction and Some Matrix Algebra , John Freeman and Christopher Federico
  • August 21 (Tuesday-Afternoon) Modeling systems of political relationships: Systems of linear equations, Phil Shively
  • August 22 (Wednesday-Morning) Modeling Preferences: Functions and the Concept Of An Ideal Point, John Freeman
  • August 23 (Thursday-Morning) Calculus, Part One, Shawn Treier
  • August 23 (Thursday-Afternoon) Calculus, Part Two: Optimization, Ben Ansell
  • August 27 (Monday-Morning) Probability Theory and Combinatorics, Jason Roberts
  • August 27 (Monday-Afternoon) Conditional Probability and Discrete Distributions, Songying Fang
  • August 28 (Tuesday-Morning) Continuous Probability Distributions and Hypothesis Testing, John Freeman
  • August 29 (Wednesday-Afternoon) Multivariate Probability Distributions and Correlation, John Freeman

Note. Oncemore, no credits are awarded for the workshop. Faculty members do not receive any compensation for the sessions they teach. The lengths of both the morning and afternoon sessions are approximate. Problem sets may be distributed at the ends of some sessions, but students are not required to complete them.