IQSS affiliate Arthur Spirling is one of two faculty members to receive this year's Roslyn Abramson Award for excellence in teaching.
Established with a gift from Edward Abramson ’57 in honor of his mother, the Abramson Award is granted each year to assistant or associate professors to recognize "excellence and sensitivity in teaching undergraduates." Chosen recipients of the monetary prize have proven themselves to be dedicated and accessible teachers, as well as inspirational to undergraduate students. Spirling, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Government, said that he was stunned by the recognition; he explained that he has mainly taught the undergraduate course Government 50, Introduction to Political Science Research Methods, "a methods class which many Gov concentrators approach with trepidation (initially at least)."
As an affiliate of IQSS, Spirling has actively participated in the Undergraduate Research Scholars program, which provides undergraduate students opportunities to gain experience on faculty research projects. Other courses that he has taught in recent years include Research Practice in Quantitative Methods (GOV 61) and Topics in Quantitative Methods (GOV 2002). His work advising graduate students was also recognized in 2012, when he was named a recipient of the Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award. Spirling's work specializes in political methodology, with an interest in applied Bayesian statistics, ideal point estimation and the application of generalized linear models in political science; his substantive field is comparative politics, with a focus mainly on the United Kingdom.
