As I type out this letter, it’s a cool 75 degrees in St. Louis: an unmistakable sign that in just a few weeks our campus will spring to life once again. Ever since I was a child, I’ve loved that buzzy feeling of the start of a new school year: the energy of returning to familiar places with fresh ideas and the anticipation of meeting new people, reading new books, and exploring new questions.

This fall, I’m returning from a sabbatical where I had the opportunity to be a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. It was a remarkable experience, one which deepened my research and my thinking about democratic politics. I return with a renewed appreciation for our intellectual community in the Political Science Department at WashU. I am especially excited to rejoin the department’s leadership team, and I’m grateful to my colleague, Frank Lovett, for his generosity in serving as associate chair in my absence.

As we come together once again this fall, the stakes of what we do as political scientists have never been higher. The institutions, practices, and ideals of democracy are under strain throughout the world, including close to home. They are being tested in courts, in parliaments, and the streets. Studying politics with theoretical and empirical rigor, and with a deep commitment to intellectual honesty, has never been more urgent.

Political science helps us understand how power works. It helps us understand how change happens and how people, acting together, create and recreate the terms through which they govern their shared lives. These are questions that demand intelligence, imagination, integrity, and care. I’m proud of the ways our department pursues them, and I’m excited for the conversations and collaborations ahead.