In Memory of Lyn Ragsdale

Session Submission Type: Virtual Roundtable

Session Description

Political Science generally and presidency/executive studies in particular lost a pioneering scholar when Lyn Ragsdale passed away in December, 2020. Lyn was among the first to systematically employ quantitative research to the study of the presidency, and was the author or co-author of several important and widely cited books and articles, including the textbook Presidential Politics, The Elusive Executive, and four editions of Vital Statistics on the American Presidency, a pathbreaking data compendium that scores of U.S. executive politics scholars have benefitted from using during the past several decades. Most recently, she co-authored The American Nonvoter with her husband and fellow political scientist, Jerrold Rusk. In addition to her scholarly accomplishments, Lyn was a trailblazing scholar and administrator (serving as co-editor of PRQ during the late 1990s in an era when women journal editors were extremely rare; former President of the Western Political Science Association and of APSA's organized section on Presidents and Executive Politics; plus Department Head [University of Illinois-Chicago] and Dean [Rice University]). This roundtable memorial is comprised of scholars who knew Lyn and her work, from her days as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, on through the rest of her extraordinary career and life. Her absence is and will continue to be sorely felt.

Sub Unit

• APSA Panels and All Meetings and Receptions

Chair

• Daniel E. Ponder Drury University

Presenters

• Karen M. Hult Virginia Tech

• Gary King Harvard University

• Robert X. Browning Purdue University

• Martha Joynt Kumar White House Transition Project

• Lara Michelle Brown The George Washington University

• Paul R. Brace Rice University