Spring 2027

Honors Seminar on Race and Politics in the United States

Honors seminar examining sources and policy implications of racial division in American politics, including affirmative action, black majority districts, and public opinion differences.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Benjamin Marquez

The workload was heavy, requiring eight books of over 200 pages, five analysis papers, and a 25-30 page final research paper on a topic of choice.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Analyze the sources and policy implications of racial division in American politics by analyzing a range of issues, such as affirmative action in the workplace and in higher education.

  • Examine the historical background of race relations and the current policy debates.

  • Explore differences in public opinion between whites and blacks, and issues concerning multi-racial and ethnic tensions.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
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F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Junior standing and declared in an Honors program

    • Junior standing
    • declared in an Honors program
    take all
POLISCI 481

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • All of
    • Junior standing
    • declared in an Honors program

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

BENJAMIN MARQUEZ is recorded teaching in Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

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SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records

No records available.

Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Benjamin Marquez

Students described the course as a good experience with motivated peers, led by an inspiring professor who facilitated interesting discussions on relevant topics.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.79 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=12 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.77 GPA, 90.9% A/AB (n=11 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.85 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=10 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Benjamin Marquez

The workload was heavy, requiring eight books of over 200 pages, five analysis papers, and a 25-30 page final research paper on a topic of choice.

Past student reviews · Benjamin Marquez

The class operated in a small book club setting where participation mattered, though some students found grading criteria unclear without feedback, despite the instructor bringing snacks.

Topics

  • Affirmative action in the workplace and higher education
  • Black majority districts and minority representation in Congress
  • Differences in public opinion between whites and blacks
  • Multi-racial and ethnic tensions
  • Historical background of race relations and current policy debates

Skills

  • Critical thinking about race and politics
  • Finding common-ground solutions to policy debates

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Not enough comparable courses for Spring 2027 in UW–Madison.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "189ec034ec10f9c89962b5d3c027ba4e1566f7ddb7edaeb77e728c3116a0ba60",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}