by Mary Howard
Photographs: Nick Lacy

Diana Evans is a leading expert on legislative politics. Her book, Greasing the Wheels: Using Pork Barrel Projects to Build Majority Coalitions in Congress, won the prestigious Richard F. Fenno, Jr. Prize for best book in legislative studies in 2004 and is considered
the definitive work on the subject.

“She is truly an exceptional scholar, teacher, and individual,” says colleague Stefanie Chambers, associate professor of political science. “Trinity is fortunate that she has remained at the college, given her stature in our profession.” On Thursday, March 14, the Reporter spent the day with Evans.

7:30 a.m. Evans leaves her Middle Haddam, Connecticut, home—which she shares with her biologist husband—and starts the 35-minute commute to campus.

A member of Trinity’s faculty since 1979, she enjoys the balance of teaching and research the College fosters. “Trinity is a wonderful place, where faculty can focus on teaching and be well supported in their research,” she says.

Evans grew up in North Carolina in a family that “talked politics a lot around the dinner table.” She describes her parents as “iconoclastic,” and says her father delighted in not taking conventional wisdom’s point of view. By the age of 13, she was routinely reading
newspaper editorials.

As a first-year college student, Evans envisioned a future in law, but by her sophomore year, she declared political science as her major. “I made the decision purely out of my love for the subject,” she says.

She earned her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Rochester. Her adviser was Dr. Richard Fenno, the scholar whose name graces the book award she received in 2004.

8:00 a.m. Evans makes her daily stop at Daybreak in Glastonbury for a double latté. The jolt of caffeine will come in handy. “It’s going to be a busy day,” she says.

8:15 a.m. In her office on the second floor of Downes Memorial, Evans “fires up” her laptop, checks her e-mail and scans The Washington Post online. She also regularly reads The New York Times and The Hartford Courant. Keeping abreast of politics is Evans’ job, but it’s also her passion.

“I’m fascinated by the way politicians, specifically members of Congress, balance their goals—their own interests with the interests of their constituents,” she says.

This is why one of her favorite classes to teach is “Congress and Public Policy (POLS 316).” “We always have current events to engage students and illustrate the concepts they study in class.” The New York Times is required reading for students in this course. “Some of them really take to it,” says Evans.

9:00 a.m. After her daily dose of the news, Evans grades her legislative interns’ analytic papers. She’s director of the Legislative Internship Program (LIP), where top Trinity students intern with members of the Connecticut General Assembly (CGA). Interns have a seminar with Evans on Thursdays, and their weekly papers integrate their observations at the Capitol with classroom readings.

“[The internship] gives us a chance to see everything we learn in Dr. Evans’ classroom play out,” says Will Hermann ’14, a political science major who interns with Connecticut State Representative David Alexander ’03. (Alexander was an LIP intern and one of Evans’ students.)

Student interns are fully included in the day-to-day activities of the Capitol, says Evans. They write position papers, do research, and shadow legislators at meetings. During his internship, Mikhael Borgonos ’08 testified in favor of a bill pending before the CGA’s Government Administration and Elections Committee. “There is so much active learning going on,” says Evans.

10:15 a.m. The papers are graded, and Evans is pleased. “The interns are developing a lot more sophistication in their understanding of what’s happening at the legislature,” she says.

Eva Lauer ’14, Evans’ research assistant, knocks on the door. The two have an appointment to review data Lauer is collecting on Connecticut State Senate candidates from recent elections. Evans is investigating whether public financing has made state legislative elections more competitive, giving challengers a better chance of defeating incumbents.

“I’ve learned different aspects of data analysis from her that I couldn’t have learned in the classroom,” says Lauer, a political science major, with a minor in music.

10:45 a.m. Evans meets with Mary Beth White, her department’s administrative assistant, to talk about the Legislative Internship Dinner, to be held on April 2. The dinner brings legislators, interns, and Political Science Department faculty together for an evening of good food and conversation.

11:00 a.m. Back in her office, Evans settles down to write graduate school recommendations. She builds long-lasting relationships with her students, like Borgonos, who says he was inspired by his professor’s “thirst for all things political.”

After graduation, he worked as an honors paralegal with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington. Now, in his last semester at Quinnipiac University School of Law, he credits his accomplishments to Evans’ “encouragement to do great things.”

1:00 p.m. Typically the LIP seminar meets on campus, and interns share their experiences with each other and Evans. “I tend to prompt a lot of discussion,” says Evans about her teaching style. But today, she’s headed to the Capitol to meet her students for a talk by Paul Mounds ’07, director of government affairs for Governor Dannel Malloy. (Mounds was also a student of Evans and an LIP intern.)

1:30 p.m. Mounds centers his talk on his work, sharing thoughts about the budget process and working for Governor Malloy. He tells the interns that the General Assembly sometimes puts items in the budget that they don’t expect to pass. “It’s a way to
open up dialogue,” he says.

Evans stays in the background as her students pose questions.

Hermann—who would love to work at the Capitol after graduation—asks if Mounds prefers working in the legislative or executive branch of the government. Prior to his work with Malloy, Mounds as deputy state director for outreach at the office of U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal.

During the talk, Governor Malloy and Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman drop by for a brief surprise visit with the interns.

2:45 p.m. Afterward, Evans and her interns head to the library in the Legislative Office Building for a training session with librarian Chris Graesser. The interns are shown how to use the advanced search functions on the CGA Web site.

4:10 p.m. Evans is back on campus for her office hour, though it is by no means the only time she makes herself available to students. She appreciates the opportunities for one-on-one conversations that Trinity fosters. “My former students frequently tell me
how important those close faculty-student ties were to them.”

5:00 p.m. Spring Break starts tomorrow, and Evans is back home packing a suitcase. In the morning, she’ll catch a plane to Virginia for a visit with her father, a retired textile company manager. No doubt, they’ll be talking politics around the dinner table.