Constitutional scholar John Carey, the chair of the government department and the John Wentworth Professor in the Social Sciences, was elected as a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Carey specializes in the study of constitutions, legislatures, elections and Latin American politics and has written five books and authored and co-authored over 50 articles and additional book chapters.
The Academy, which was founded during the American Revolution, aims to bring together the best scholars in the United States to discuss the greatest issues facing the world today.
Carey said he is excited to be elected as a fellow in the Academy.
"It's an honor and a thrill and completely unexpected," Carey said. "I'm familiar with a lot of the big name people in political science who are in the Academy, so the idea that they actually know who I am and elected me is amazing."
The Academy, founded in 1780, is one of the nation's most prestigious honor societies and is an independent policy research center focused on multidisciplinary studies of current and emerging world problems, according to the Academy's website.
"Carey is considered as one of the very leading scholars studying electoral design and legislative voting, which are critical to understanding how democracy itself works," government professor Benjamin Valentino said.
Government professor William Wohlforth said that this prominent distinction is a product of the top-quality research Carey has done. Carey has traveled to Afghanistan, Jordan, Tunisia, Yemen and South Sudan to conduct his research, according to a College press release.
"The sine qua non is scholarly distinction, and John has an extremely successful, visible and influential research program," Wohlforth said. "More than that, the Academy is kind of super think tank, deploying scholarly expertise to address weighty problems of the day. It's little wonder that the selection committee was attracted to his work."
The Academy was founded by leaders including John Adams, James Bowdoin and John Hancock, with the stated purpose to "cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous people," according to the Academy website.
"Election to the Academy is both an honor for extraordinary accomplishment and a call to serve," Academy President Leslie Berlowitz said in a press release. "We look forward to drawing on the knowledge and expertise of these distinguished men and women to advance solutions to the pressing policy challenges of the day."
Wohlforth said that election to the academy is recognized as an enormous honor in the academic field.
"Political science is a huge discipline and only a tiny, tiny number are ever elected to the Academy," he said.
Valentino said that Carey's election to the Academy not only speaks to Carey's accomplishments, but also to the strength of Dartmouth as a leader in academic research.
"It brings much deserved recognition to Carey, the government department and Dartmouth in general for the kind of high-level scholarship that goes on here," Valentino said.
Professors at Dartmouth are able to combine top-quality research with top-quality teaching, Valentino said.
"It shows that doing both of those things well teaching and the highest level of research is not only possible, but that they go together," he said.
Carey will be one of 220 newly elected members to be inducted to the Academy on October 6 at the Academy's headquarters in Cambridge, Mass., according to an Academy press release.
Previously, several individuals affiliated with Dartmouth have received this recognition, including College President Jim Yong Kim, President Emeritus James Wright and former College President James Freedman, as well as philosophy professor Robert Fogelin, Tuck School of Business professor Kenneth French, Thayer School of Engineering professor Elsa Garmire and music professor Christian Wolff, according to the College press release.
