On February 13-15th, the Department of Political Science sent a team of three students to the prestigious annual Student Conference on National Affairs (SCONA) held at Texas A&M University College Station. SCONA’s 65th annual meeting brought together students from around the world and gave them the opportunity to interact with premier scholars, industry professionals, and well-known public figures. Political Science majors Kevin Brown, Pauleana Morang and Jesilyn Williams represented the department this year, and they all had, in their own words, an “amazing” and “enlightening” experience. Brown’s team won second place in the competition.
The theme of this year’s conference was “Forging America’s Future: Exploring Solutions for Current Challenges,” and the participants were part of small teams that analyzed U.S. policy in regards to topics ranging from infrastructure and climate change to great powers conflict and the new space race. The object of the conference was to introduce students to the decision-making process in the global community. The keynote speakers were Colonel Mike Fossum (Former NASA Astronaut), Brigadier General Kim Field (Executive Director of the Albritton Center for Grand Strategy at the Bush School of Public Service) and Major General Patrick Hamilton (Commanding General, 36th Infantry Division, Texas Army National Guard).
Each of the TXST students chose to participate in different small teams based on their areas of interests. For example, Kevin worked on a team tasked with developing cybersecurity initiatives to strengthen U.S based cybersecurity and to prevent intellectual property theft. They won the second place award for the best overall presentation. Pauleana worked on a team studying the challenges of the Great Power Competition posed by China and Russia. Jesilyn worked in the natural resource security team. In addition to learning from experts and their peers and developing expertise on current issues in international security affairs, the students also greatly appreciated the opportunity to network with professionals in the field.
