Ragsdale named dean of social sciences

Ragsdale named dean of social sciences

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff

Lyn Ragsdale, head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Ilnois–Chicago, has been appointed dean of Rice University’s School of Social Sciences.

Lyn Ragsdale

Her appointment becomes effective Aug. 1, when Robert Stein steps down as dean to devote more time to teaching and research.

“We are excited that we have found in Lyn Ragsdale an outstanding academic leader and scholar to lead our School of Social Sciences,” Rice President David Leebron said. “Understanding human behavior, society and institutions, from the individual level to the global scale, is vital to the progress of our world. We must continue to invest in our School of Social Sciences, and Professor Ragsdale will bring the right combination of leadership, vision, energy and a collaborative spirit, within and without the university, to that endeavor.”

As dean of social sciences, Ragsdale will oversee the departments of anthropology, economics, political science, psychology and sociology, as well as the managerial studies and policy studies programs. She will also be appointed the Radoslav A. Tsanoff Chair of Public Affairs and professor of political science.

“We’re very fortunate to have Dean Ragsdale follow in the footsteps of Bob Stein, who, during his 11 years as dean, helped make the School of Social Sciences highly sought by city and business leaders seeking urban research,” Provost Eugene Levy said. “In addition to bringing new vision to the faculty and advancing excellence in both graduate and undergraduate education and research, Dean Ragsdale will play an essential role in further developing the school’s financial resources and strengthening relationships ‘beyond the hedges.’”

Ragsdale, who has three degrees in political science (a doctorate and a master’s from the University of Wisconsin and a bachelor’s with high honors from Arizona State University), said her interest in politics stems from her childhood in Milwaukee. “I come from a very political family,” she said. “That’s what we talked about at the dinner table. I knew I would either go into politics or study politics.” Her husband, Jerrold Rusk, shares that professional interest and will join Rice’s faculty as a professor of political science.

After Ragsdale completed her doctoral degree, she began her academic career at the University of Arizona, where she served on the faculty for 19 years, starting as an assistant professor of political science in 1982, and then becoming an associate professor with tenure in 1987 and a full professor in 1994. She directed the University of Arizona Survey Research Center for three years.

Her research interests — the presidency, electoral behavior and Congress — are reflected in the books she has written: “The Elusive Executive: Discovering Statistical Patterns in the Presidency,” “Presidential Politics” and “Vital Statistics on the Presidency, Washington to Clinton,” which won the American Library Association’s Choice Award for the best reference work in 1996 and will be published in a third revised edition next year.

During her time at the University of Arizona, Ragsdale spent a year as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow in Washington, where she was named the William A. Steiger Fellow (best fellow of the year), a year in London as an honors professor for the Arizona-Iowa Consortium Study Abroad Program and a year in New York as a fellow for the Russell Sage Foundation.

She left Arizona in 2001 to head the political science department at the University of Illinois–Chicago, which has 20 full-time faculty, five staff members, 50 graduate students and 400 undergraduate majors. There she implemented a project-planning style of management.

For one of her projects, she has been working on the establishment of a master’s degree in global affairs that combines the University of Illinois–Chicago’s courses with those at a university in Europe or Asia along with an internship in an international organization, foreign government or nongovernmental organization. Another project focused on strengthening the graduate program by establishing a fellowship to recruit top students, making travel funds available for students to attend major political science conferences, creating a course to educate students on how to publish their seminar papers, enhancing the methodology curriculum and devising an exit survey to solicit feedback from graduates. She also developed a project called the “Politics Forum,” which brings political science alumni together every two years with political figures to discuss national and state election results. The forum draws media attention to the campus and promotes fundraising as well.

At Rice, Ragsdale hopes to combine her project-planning style with strategic planning. “One project that I would envision is to create a Center for Social Science Research that would make the social sciences as visible as possible, not just on campus but nationally and internationally,” she said. The center would offer external fellowships to outstanding social science faculty from throughout the U.S. who would be invited to spend a semester or year at the center, during which time they might become fond of Rice as an attractive place at which to work. Rice faculty could receive internal fellowships to foster interdisciplinary bonds across the social sciences and between Rice faculty and social scientists around the nation. Fellowship recipients would be encouraged to apply for grants to continue their research. “Creating such a focal point would draw attention to the social sciences within the larger university and could also be an appropriate project to interest donors,” Ragsdale said.

She advocates that the School of Social Sciences be a leader in diversity. “Core parts of the curriculum and research in the social sciences involve topics of race, ethnicity and gender, as well as social movements and cultural identity,” Ragsdale said. “This is important not only in matters of faculty hiring and retention, but also in how people at all levels — faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students and staff — view their daily experience on campus.”

Ragsdale had ample opportunity to develop her organizational, interpersonal and budgetary skills during her four years as editor of Political Research Quarterly, for which she reviewed and made decisions on nearly 300 manuscripts per year and built a reviewer base of more than 1,000 people, and from her year as president of the Western Political Science Association, for which she planned two annual conventions for more than 1,100 participants.

“I enjoy the challenges and opportunities of administration and have a strong interest in continuing this work at a different level at one of the top universities in the country,” she said.

In addition to carrying out her duties as dean, Ragsdale plans to finish writing two books over the next two years — one about the tough choices presidents make on major decisions, and one about America’s nonvoters. Ragsdale finds that presidents and their advisers make major decisions by selecting an option quickly, thereby foreclosing information and a discussion of other options. In her analysis of nonvoters, Ragsdale discovers that they are far from a monolithic group. Instead, there are distinct types of nonvoters, and the largest group consists of those people who are dissatisfied with the candidates and stay away from the polls.

“Lyn Ragsdale brings strong scholarly credentials, experience as chair of a major academic department and an appreciation for the opportunities at Rice,” said Allen Matusow, the William Gaines Twyman Professor of History, who chaired the search committee for a new dean. “She has had success as a fundraiser, and she will represent the social sciences in the larger university with skill.”

Other members of the search committee were Rice trustee Robert Brockman, chair and CEO of Universal Computer Systems; James Dannemiller, the Lynette S. Autrey Professor of Psychology; Michael Emerson, the Allyn and Gladys Cline Professor of Sociology; Eugenia Georges, associate professor of anthropology; Mikki Hebl, associate professor of psychology and of management; Vivian Ho, fellow in health economics at Rice’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and associate professor of economics; Christopher Kelty, assistant professor of anthropology; Nancy Lin, undergraduate student; Melissa Marschall, associate professor of political science; Elise McCarthy, graduate student; Helena Michie, the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor in Humanities and chair of the English department; Cliff Morgan, the Albert Thomas Professor of Political Science; Elizabeth Powell, department coordinator for economics; Carol Quillen, associate professor of history and director of the Boniuk Center for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance; Darrow Zeidenstein, associate vice president for development; and George Zodrow, professor of economics.