Suffolk University Government Professor John Berg was honored recently with an American Political Science Association (APSA) Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his leadership as an educator in the national political science arena.
“After all my years in education, what remains really important to me is the quality of teaching and the recognition that good teaching is part of our job,” said Berg, who received the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award from the APSA Political Science Education Section at the association’s annual meeting in San Francisco.
The award honors a person whose lifetime contribution to political science has had a significant impact on undergraduate education.
“It’s good to know that teaching is taken very seriously in today’s political science culture,” said Berg, who is director of Environmental Studies and has taught at Suffolk for 41 years.
"Inspirational" influence
"Due to his leadership and persistent work on behalf of teachers and scholars, John has helped to institutionalize the scholarship of teaching and learning within the political science field,” said Renée Van Vechten, associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Redlands in California and president of APSA’s Political Science Education Section, which Berg helped to establish. “Although it’s impossible to quantify John’s exceptional influence in the area of political science teaching and learning, it is deep, lasting, and inspirational.”
Berg helped found the Journal of Political Science Education and transform it into a thriving venue for targeted, peer-reviewed research. He also helped to establish the annual Teaching Learning Conference for political scientists who desire to sharpen their pedagogy and widen their professional networks.
“John is the living embodiment of all that the [Political Science Education] section was, is, and will be,” said John Ishiyama, distinguished research professor of political science at the University of North Texas and lead editor of the American Political Science Review. “He has spent a lifetime being a champion for all that the section stands for. I can think of no one better suited for this award than John Berg.”