A brief interview with
- LISA PACE VETTER
I’m an assistant professor and teach political theory. I joined the department as a part-time instructor in 2009 and began full-time in 2011. I’m a Baltimore native and earned my B.A. right here at UMBC; M.A./Ph.D. at Fordham University. My two books are: “Women’s Work” as Political Art: Weaving and Dialectical Politics in Homer, Aristophanes, and Plato and The Political Thought of America’s Founding Feminists. I love road cycling and have completed several triathlons and century rides.
Q: What led you to become a political scientist?
A: I love political theory because it reveals that the subfields in political science ask the same important questions and deal with the same fundamental issues but in different ways.
Q: What kinds of research questions are most interesting to you?
A: What can political theorists tell us about current debates and issues? What solutions or alternatives can theorists reveal? What political theorists have we overlooked or forgotten about and what can they teach us today?
Q: What ideas, skills, or experiences do you hope students will come away with after having taken a class with you?
A: Connect political theories to issues they care most about. Look at those issues in different ways and come up with innovative alternatives and solutions to them.
Q: What can POLI majors do with their degrees?
A: Help solve the world’s problems and make the world a better place.