Department of Government Timeline

100 years of excellence

1910 – Board of Regents divides School of Political Science into three units: government, economics and institutional history

1915 – Frank Mann Stewart receives first B.A. in government

1919 – Southwestern Political Science Association founded by Government faculty

1920 – Pi Sigma Alpha, the national political science honors society, founded by government faculty

1929 – Texas Legislature mandates that all public college students take three course hours covering the American and Texas constitutions; Samuel Dale Myres Jr. receives first Ph.D. in government

1930 – V.O. Key Jr., future author of “Southern Politics in State and Nation,” receives M.A. in government

1931 – Future Gov. Allan Shivers receives B.A. in government

1933 – Emmette Redford hired; said a famous political scientist, in 1974, about Texas: “I trust Redford’s students continue to run the government, no matter what the Constitution”

1934 – Professor John Lloyd Mecham publishes “Church and State in Latin America”

1937 – Texas Legislature increases government course requirement to six hours; Gladys Grace Gregory becomes the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in government

1941 – Government Professor John Alton Burdine Sr. becomes university’s first vice president

1949 – William Livingston – “the soul of the university” – and James Roach hired; government faculty members consult with the Texas House of Representatives on establishing the Texas Legislative Council

1950 – Stuart MacCorkle begins planning curriculum for a Master of Arts in public administration

1953 – Texas Senate passes resolution commending Caleb Perry Patterson for a distinguished professorship

1954 – Department Chairman O.D. Weeks presents “Presidential Nominating Politics in 1952” to Gov. Shivers

1956 – James Roach receives Ford Foundation and Fulbright awards for research and teaching in India and Pakistan

1957 – Harley Clark, inventor of the Hook ‘em Horns hand sign, receives B.A. in government

1958 – William Astor Kirk becomes the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in government

1959 – Emmette Redford elected president of the American Political Science Association

1960 – Billy Crane receives his Ph.D. in government. Crane had fallen victim to an arcane university regulation that expelled him from the university for failing to cooperate with police who were investigating a party because the hosts were presumed homosexuals. Department of Government faculty rallied and successfully had Crane reinstated – the first time a student was readmitted following expulsion under the regulation. Crane spent his career teaching at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and a scholarship recognizing their top political science students honors his legacy.

1962 – Government Professor Benjamin F. Wright named director of Plan II Honors Program

1965 – William Livingston drafts his “Development Plan” for the department, writing, “It is not unreasonable to suggest that within five years or so this Department can be made to rank among the best in the country”

1966 – Plans are made for Carl Leiden to prepare an introductory course in Middle Eastern Studies

1967 – Clifton McCleskey introduces survey research techniques in his undergraduate seminar; The University of Texas at Austin joins the Inter-University Consortium for Political Research

1968 – Department governance reformed when the Budget Council is replaced with the Executive Committee

1969 – Wallace Mendelson named president of the Southern Political Science Association

1970 – Burdine Hall dedicated in honor of John Alton Burdine Sr.; LBJ School of Public Affairs founded – Emmette Redford named the school’s first faculty member; Clement Henry co-edits “Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society: the Dynamics of Established One-Party Systems”

1975 – Texas Senate passes resolution honoring Emmette Redford; William Livingston named president of the Southern Political Science Association

1979 – The Wahlke Report, an external audit of the department, criticizes the department for “academic immobilism” and ushers in nearly a decade of intra-department turmoil

1979 – Gary Freeman publishes “Immigrant Labor and Racial Conflict in Industrial Societies”

1981 – David Prindle publishes “Petroleum Politics and the Texas Railroad Commission,” winner of the Southern Political Science Association’s V.O. Key Jr. Award for the best book on southern politics

1982 – William Livingston named to the Jo Anne Christian Centennial Professorship in British Studies

1983 – R. Harrison Wagner publishes “The Theory of Games and the Problem of International Cooperation” in The American Political Science Review

1984 – Melvin Hinich and James Enelow publish “The Spatial Theory of Voting”

1986 – Melvin Hinich named Mike Hogg Professor of Local Government

1987 – Jeffrey Tulis publishes “The Rhetorical Presidency”; Bruce Buchanan publishes “The Citizen’s Presidency”

1988 – Walter Dean Burnham hired and appointed to the Frank C. Erwin Jr. Centennial Chair in State Government

1989 – Robert Hardgrave appointed to the Louann and Larry Temple Centennial Professorship in the Humanities; John Higley appointed to the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in Australian Studies

1990 – David Braybrooke receives Centennial Commission Professorship in the Liberal Arts; Bat Sparrow presents “Raising Taxes and Going into Debt: A Resource Dependence Model of U.S. Public Finance in the 1940s” at the American Political Science Association meeting. The following year, Sparrow’s paper receives the Pi Sigma Alpha Award for best paper presented at the annual conference.

1991 – H.W. Perry publishes “Deciding to Decide: Agenda Setting in the United States Supreme Court,” winner of the American Political Science Association’s C. Herman Pritchett Award for the best book on law and courts

1992 – William Livingston named acting president of the university

1995 – Public Policy Clinic established; H. Malcolm Macdonald testamentary gift established

1997 – J. Budziszewski publishes “Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law”

1998 – Henry Dietz publishes “Urban Poverty, Political Participation and the State: Lima 1970-1990”

1999 – Peter Trubowitz’s “Defining the National Interest: Conflict and Change in American Foreign Policy” wins the American Political Science Association’s J. David Greenstone Award for best book in history and politics

2000 – James R. Roach Endowed Fund in American Foreign Relations established

2002 – Zoltan Barany named Frank C. Erwin Jr. Centennial Professor in Government

2004 – Thomas Pangle appointed to the Joe R. Long Endowed Chair in Democratic Studies; Gary Jacobsohn named H. Malcolm Macdonald Chair in Constitutional and Comparative Law

2005 – Catherine Boone’s “Political Topographies of the African State: Rural Authority and Institutional Choice” wins the Society for Comparative Research Mattei Dogan Award

2007 – Kurt Weyland named the Lozano Long Professor of Latin American Politics; The Experimental Political Behavior and Communication Laboratory established

2008 – Bryan Jones appointed to the J. J. “Jake” Pickle Regents Chair in Congressional Studies

2009 – Charlie N. Wilson Chair dedicated, the nation’s first privately funded chair in Pakistan studies; Rod Hart’s “Campaign Talk: Why Elections are Good for Us” wins the American Political Science Association’s Doris Graber Book Award honoring the best book in political communication published in the last 10 years

2010 – Bryan Jones assumes presidency of the Midwest Political Science Association; Sandy Levinson wins the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Political Science Association’s Law and Courts Organized Section; department begins raising funds to establish the Melvin J. Hinich Graduate Fellowship