If you could start a political science program from scratch, howwould you do it? Given no institutional history, how would youdesign graduate and undergraduate programs? How would you grow yourfaculty? How would you attempt to build a reputation in the absenceof a reputation at time t-1? In aninterdisciplinary environment, with which disciplines would you workmost closely? For most political science professors, these might beinteresting hypothetical questions to consider. For the two of us,these questions are very real and have dominated our recent worklives as we have just finished our first year as the foundingpolitical science faculty at the brand new University of Californiacampus, UC Merced.We thank CarissaHansford, Shawn Kantor, and Jennifer Nicholson for helpfulcomments and suggestions.