Our mission is to convey to our students substantive knowledge about politics and society, and to train them in the cognitive skills necessary to understand and analyze political phenomena.  We believe that our students must not only have specific knowledge of politics, but must also have the habits of thought common to political analysis.  Substantive areas include:  political institutions and processes; the origins, development, and transformation of theory and concepts; understanding different approaches to political analyses, their philosophical roots, and when and how to employ them;  and, historical, political, social, cultural, economic, and legal contexts necessary for understanding politics and the debates about it.  The cognitive skills we seek to impart include:  employment of different methods of analysis and critical thinking, by which we mean to articulate the strengths and weaknesses of arguments, to identify and evaluate the ethical implications of various political positions, to articulate one's own ethical position, to engage in empirical analysis, to interpret texts, and to conduct independent research.  We believe that the skills of oral and written communication are intrinsic to achieving these goals.  While we do not expect each course to address every goal, nor do we expect every major student to explore all of these types of knowledge, we do believe that the Department's program should help students achieve competence in a substantial proportion of these types of knowledge.