About the Department

Professor Gary King has received the 2011 Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award, given by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

The award was presented on April 12 in a Dudley House ceremony attended by GSAS deans, the winning and nominated faculty mentors, and their students. It is presented annually by the Graduate Student Council and named for Professor of the History of Science, Emeritus Everett I. Mendelsohn, a former master of Dudley House. They celebrate faculty who go out of their way to mentor GSAS students, supporting them professionally and personally in ways large, small, and always meaningful — doing everything from inviting them to collaborate on papers and critiquing their talks to inviting them home for Thanksgiving. Read on for excerpts of winning nominations and photos.

Gary King

Gary King is the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor in the Department of Government and founding director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. In nominating him for the award, students wrote that they appreciated his dedication and legendary availability. One student wrote that King “kindles genius in others. . . . I came up with better ideas in 10 minutes of brainstorming in Gary’s office than in 10 hours of thinking on my own. His advice literally changed the trajectory of my thesis and inspired the chapter that is likely to form the core of my research for some time to come.” Another student said King “is one of the best mentors in the social sciences. Even though he runs a large institute and has several prominent business and consulting projects, all graduate students have to do (to speak with him) is stop by. We are the priority, and if you are a graduate student, Gary is available to you 24/7.” Another wrote, “He has continued to be an invaluable source of professional and technical advice,” and as a result, “countless (of his) graduate students . . . now have jobs at top universities all over the world.”