Congratulations to our Political Science students for placing in the 2025 Undergraduate Research Exhibition!
Jessican Firestone received second place in the social and behavioral sciences category with her project titled “The Conditional Relationship Between Trumpism, Patriotism, and Support for the Right to Protest: A Quantitative Study of Centre County, Pennsylvania Residents”. Jessica looks at how support for patriotism is affected by patriotism and support for Trump. She finds that as patriotism increases, support for the right to protest increases. Amongst voters surveyed, Trump voters were less supportive of the right to protest. Congrats Jessica!
Connor McMahan won the John T. Luckie Award for the most outstanding project by a junior in the social behavioral sciences category with his project titled “Education’s Role In Our Elections”. He investigated the relationship between education and vote choice, and the different effects of education on urban/rural voters. He did not find evidence of the conditional relationship, but he found clear evidence that increases in education decreased the likelihood of voting for trump and rural voters were more likely to vote for Trump. Congrats Connor!