Seven Harvard affiliates honored by AAPSS

The American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS) recognized its new group of fellows for 2003 at an April 13 ceremony in Washington, D.C. Among the group of 10 fellows, three Harvard faculty were named. They include Mary Jo Bane, Christopher Jencks, and Orlando Patterson.

Each year, the academy selects a group of fellows for their distinguished scholarship in the social sciences, sustained efforts to communicate that scholarship to audiences beyond their own discipline, and professional activities that promise to continue to promote the progress of the social sciences.

Each fellow is designated to a position named after a distinguished scholar and public servant who has written over the past century for the academy’s bimonthly journal, “The Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science.” Bane will be designated as Eleanor Roosevelt Fellow; Jencks as W.E.B. Du Bois Fellow; and Patterson as Ernest W. Burgess Fellow.

“The wide influence of the fellows’ work stands as an exemplar for all social scientists, both active and nascent,” said Lawrence H. Sherman, president of the academy.

This year, AAPSS also designated 105 junior fellows of the academy, four of whom are Harvard seniors. They are Adam Grant (psychology), Venessa A. Keesler (sociology), Lisa Schwartz (government), and Richard Charles Worf (history). Each junior fellow was elected on the basis of nominations from his or her undergraduate department.

In addition to being named a junior fellow, Grant received one of the academy’s nine Undergraduate Research Awards for his paper “Working Hard, Or Hardly Working? Predictors of Group Effectiveness.”