Video feature:LAITS has created Texas Politics: a multimedia-rich, online textbook designed to support and enhance instruction in Texas government and politics. As with most other LAITS projects, Texas Politics is freely available on the Internet, saving students out-of-pocket textbook costs and enabling The University of Texas to share its intellectual resources with the general public.
Over the next two years, LAITS plans to add new and original features to the web site so that Texas Politics can better encourage both students and the general public to become educated and involved citizens of the state.
Texas Politics In Focus will examine subjects that affect the daily lives of Texans, such as public education and transportation. In Focus will use original essays, graphics and short, documentary-style videos to provide accessible analysis of the politics and policy questions surrounding selected issues.
Untold Stories will be a series of compact documentary videos examining key events in Texas political history that are not widely explored, such as the Constitutional Convention of 1974. The stories will incorporate primary documents, original interviews and archival media resources to provide new explanations of historical events.
The rhythm of the political calendar in Texas demands regular updates to the content of Texas Politics in order to fully exploit the technical advantages of online publishing. Because student fees cannot cover all the costs of these diverse and innovative projects, the College of Liberal Arts seeks to raise approximately $500,000 in private support for Texas Politics.
Texas Politics In Focus will deepen the content available to students and their instructors and broaden the usefulness and appeal of Texas Politics among the general public. To achieve this the Texas Politics team will create In Focus features that will be in-depth treatments of issues of current and enduring importance to Texas politics. An original essay will anchor each treatment and will be written by field experts. The essays will discuss each policy areas' historical roots, evolution and current status. The Texas Politics team and field experts will also produce new video features, charts, tables, or other graphic elements for each In Focus treatment.
Video feature:Texas Politics In Focus will cover the following areas:
In Focus features can be used in conjunction with or independently of the core instructional components of the Texas Politics textbook. Because this new phase of the Texas Politics project will be designed with both the student and the general public in mind, these features will be more media rich and less text-driven than the current chapters.
Texas Politics In Focus will maintain the constructive, informative, engaging and strictly non-partisan tone established in the current chapters of Texas Politics. We anticipate that the addition of In Focus to the site will both complement current offerings and help make Texas Politics a crucial resource for learners.
The Texas Politics team is also producing Untold Stories, a series of historically focused mini-documentaries on important and untold stories in Texas' political history. The mini-documentaries will be an integral part of the Texas Politics web site.
Video feature: The planned five feature series will use the resources housed in the College of Liberal Arts and The University of Texas at Austin--expert faculty, unique archival holdings, access to past and present political leaders, and expertise in educational media production--to create unique and engaging explorations of Texas history and to shed light on unheralded but pivotal episodes in Texas' political history. Embedding these features in the context of the existing Texas Politics web site invites students and their teachers to connect Texas history to contemporary political institutions in their classrooms and on their desktops. Through the Untold Stories features students and the general public will learn how Texas history illuminates contemporary political debates and is crucial to a complete understanding of our state.
Following are brief descriptions of the first three mini-documentaries to be produced.
Breaking Conventions: The Politics of Constitutional Reform, 1971-1974. Texans and their elected representatives came face-to-face with a complicated legacy of the state's history when the legislature voted in 1971 to call a Constitutional Convention scheduled for 1974. Providing new, more detailed explanations of the politics surrounding the 1974 Convention provides critical detail to discussions about the nature of the Texas Constitution and debates surrounding efforts to overhaul it. This feature uses archival resources housed at UT-Austin, including the Frances Farenthold Papers, as well as interviews with participating legislators and surviving members of the constitutional revision committee appointed by the legislature.
Prelude to an Era: Pappy O'Daniel, the Hillbilly Boys, and the Modern Political Entertainer. Long before Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura, or even Ronald Reagan, Texas had the controversial Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel. This feature will use rarely heard radio broadcasts of political speeches combined with musical performances by O'Daniel and his Hillbilly Boys from his 1939 gubernatorial inauguration and from later events during his term as U.S. Senator. Examining O'Daniel's career fosters discussion and analysis of such issues as the leadership styles of governors and the evolution of the role of media in political campaigns.
Table feature: The Idea of the Alamo. The number one tourist attraction in the state has also served as an enduring and flexible political symbol in the history of the state. This feature briefly recounts the Battle of the Alamo and examines how the Alamo has been used throughout Texas history. This discussion of the development of the symbolism of the Alamo contributes to discussions of a wide range of topics tackled in introductory government courses, including the dynamics of political culture and ideology in Texas, as well as the use of symbols by elected officials and candidates.
LAITS has partnered with UTOPIA, The University of Texas Libraries web portal to help ensure that these stories reach an even wider audience. UTOPIA will feature the stories on its web site, which receives more than 33 million hits a year, and direct interested visitors to the Texas Politics web site for more information about events and issues highlighted in stories.
The University of Texas and the College of Liberal Arts strives to provide all Texans with a better understanding of their world and to enable them to engage that world positively and productively. One of the best ways to achieve those ambitious goals is to create resources like Texas Politics which can help students and citizens participate meaningfully in a civic life that requires an increasingly diverse set of perspectives and abilities. For more information about any aspect of the Texas Politics project, please contact Jim Henson, Ph.D., Executive Producer of Texas Politics, at .