Call for Proposals: Teaching Sports and Politics

APSA Teaching & Learning Symposium
Dates: June 11-18, 2026

Application Deadline: April 5, 2026

The American Political Science Association’s (APSA) Teaching and Learning program is pleased to announce a call for proposals for a small cohort of political scientists to participate in a virtual teaching and learning symposium that will meet on Zoom between June 11-18, 2026. APSA’s teaching and learning symposia provide a workshop environment where scholar-educators with similar goals can come together to share their own practices and research related to teaching and create new teaching resources for their courses. Led by Darrell Lovell (West Texas A&M University) and Andrea Benjamin (University of Oklahoma), the theme of this symposium is Teaching Sports and Politics.

Sports offer a unique experience and connection for students to learn about contemporary topics in policy, administrative, and political decision-making. Research suggests that there is a connection between civic pride associated with government connection and the presence and success of athletics. This symposium is geared towards instructors of political science, public administration, and related fields who want to teach about the intersection between sports and politics.

Workshop Details

Date: June 11-28, 2026
Location: Online
Registration fee: $20 for APSA members and $35 for non-members
Application Deadline: Sunday, April 5, 2026

Topics and Questions

This symposium is interesting in a broad range of questions related to teaching about sports in political science, public administration, and related fields. These topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

Using mega events such as the World Cup or Olympics to discuss urban planning and taxation
Discussing policy clashes, legal challenges, and overlaps through topics such as implementing NIL and Title IX simultaneously
Examining activism and political participation through the lens of college and professional athletes
Analyzing organizational missions and goal shifting using the duality of academic and athletic success goals for universities
Managing the challenges of teaching about sports and race, gender, and politicization of higher education and athletics in the age of government overreach
Examining comparative policies on human rights and finance and legislation and implementation of mega events such as the World Cup and Olympics

The goals of the symposium are four-fold:

To provide an inclusive space where participants can build supportive relationships with other scholar-educators who teach courses on politics and related topic areas.
To present, discuss, and co-create innovative class activities, readings, research opportunities, or assignments for students studying political science and related topic areas.
To contribute teaching materials to an APSA Educate resource collection on fields in politics and related fields.
To produce ideas for potential research articles that examine how to integrate sport policy into political science and public administration curriculum.

Your teaching resource need not be publication ready, only something you have found useful in the introductory class and are interested in developing and sharing. The final resource collection will be shared on APSA Educate in advance of the fall 2026 semester for other faculty to browse and use in their own classes.

Possible resources/techniques include but are not limited to:

Activities, assignments and rubrics, syllabi, reading lists, and other materials related to teaching the topics/themes listed above
simulations/games/active learning exercises
readings and how you incorporate them (readings can include: open educational resources, multimedia sources, public scholarship, blog posts, etc.)
online tools and activities
techniques/tools that support an inclusive classroom, encourage dialogue, and literacy

How to Apply

We encourage applications from faculty from political science and related fields (i.e. public administration and public policy) that are at all stages of their careers, from a range of institutions, including universities and two- and four-year colleges. Advanced graduate students are also encouraged to apply. Applicants should have experience teaching and be active APSA members at the time of the symposium.

Start your application here
Application deadline: Sunday, April 5, 2026

Proposals should be submitted online and include:

Recent CV, including detailed information on teaching experience
250-word abstract summarizing the resource or topic you plan to present at the symposium
250-word description of your motivation and goals for participating in the symposium
Brief description of your institution and how the course you teach fits into your department’s curriculum.

Successful applicants will be notified by April 15, 2026. Course registration fees ($20 for APSA members and $35 for non-members) may be paid online in advance of the symposium. For more information, visit the Teaching and Learning Symposia website and/or contact teaching@apsanet.org.

Symposium Schedule

This workshop will meet virtually for three sessions and participants should expect to work with their small groups outside of these sessions during the week of June 15-18, 2026.

Monday, June 11 and Tuesday, June 12 from 11 am ET- 5 pm ET: Participants present their own pedagogical techniques related to teaching the sports in politics and related courses. Presentations are short (exact time dependent on registration), allowing for significant discussion from the group, in a workshop-style atmosphere. Presentations should blend an explanation of the sports-related topic and pedagogy approaches.
June 15-June 17: Participants will work independently, on their own schedule, in small groups based on interest by sport and pedagogy. Each team then decides what kind of resource(s) they want to produce (e.g. in-class exercise, simulation, social media project). The groups will collaborate to develop the desired resources with the goal of guiding how they can integrate sports into curriculum for classes in politics or related topics such as policy or administration within their shared topic areas. Teams will work together on their own and determine when they will meet.
Thursday, June 18 from 11 am ET- 5 pm ET: Full symposium will meet again to share team-based collaborations, wrap-up discussion, and discuss next steps.
Monday, July 3: Due date for APSA Educate resources. The resultant teaching resources are disseminated through APSA Educate, political science’s virtual teaching resource library. Symposium participants come away from the event with new insights into teaching and research in their area, with concrete teaching resources that they can use in their own courses.

Meet the Co-Facilitators

Darrell Lovell serves as the MPA director at West Texas A&M University where he is an assistant professor. Dr. Lovell offers courses in public management, analysis of public policy, administrative theory, and research methods as well as serving as an honors faculty member and mentor. He is the lead author on the book Name, image, and likeness (NIL) policies: Institutional impact and state responses from Routledge Publishing. His research centers on applying concepts of street-level bureaucracy and public governance to higher education. His most recent work has been published in Administration & Society, Administrative Theory & Praxis, Public Integrity, and the Journal of Public and Non-Profit Affairs. He has been author or co-author on six publications on NIL policy.

Andrea Benjamin is an Associate Professor in the Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies. She is originally from Northern California and completed her undergraduate degree at the University of California, Davis. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2010. Her research interests include Race and Politics, Local Elections and Voting behavior, and Public Opinion. Her first book, Racial Coalition Building in Local Elections: Elite Cues and Cross-Ethnic Voting, explores the potential for Black and Latino Coalitions. Using the Co-Ethnic Elite Cues Theory, the book shows that Blacks and Latinos rely on endorsements from co-ethnic leaders when casting their ballots. This is especially true when race and ethnicity are salient in the campaign. This book was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Politics, Urban Affairs Review, PS: Political Science, the National Review of Black Politics, and Urban Studies. She has appeared on NPR’s 1A, written for the Washington Post, and has been interviewed by reporters from the New York Times, Governing, and the Connecticut Mirror. In April of 2024, Dr. Benjamin received the Provost’s Award for Outstanding Faculty Service at the University of Oklahoma

Visit APSA’s Teaching Symposia page for information about this program and to view past events.