Professor Sharon Lean receives prestigious university award

Dr. Sharon Lean is a quintessential recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Director Award. Professor Lean's field of research is Comparative Politics with specializations in Latin American politics and processes of democratization. She published a major work entitled Civil Society and Electoral Accountability in Latin America (Palgrave Macmillan 2012) and co-edited another book entitled Promoting Democracy in the Americas (Johns Hopkins University Press 2007). She has published two journal articles in Electoral Studies and five chapters in edited volumes.

In the winter of 2013, Professor Lean received a Fulbright Research Fellowship to work in Mexico. She has been a Resident Scholar with the WSU Humanities Center for 2013-14 and 2014-15. In addition to her scholarship, Professor Lean is an exemplary teacher in the graduate programs in Political Science.

She has offered five different graduate courses and has directed two completed dissertations - one of these Ph.Ds is on the tenure track at Auburn University and the other is on the tenure track at Saginaw Valley State University. Professor Lean is currently chairing five other dissertation committees.

Dr. Lean was appointed the Director of the Graduate Programs in Political Science in 2014, and as a result of her efforts, the number of students enrolled in the M.A. and Ph.D. graduate programs has increased to a population of over 60. Dr. Lean advises all of these students herself and locates funding for large numbers of doctoral candidates. Four graduate students participated in her successful 2016 USAID grant, and she is a Co-Principal Investigator for the NEH Next Generation Scholars Humanities Planning Grant.

For her selfless commitment to graduate students and for her devotion to the success of the M.A. and Ph.D. programs in Political Science, Professor Sharon Lean was the perfect selection for the 2017 Outstanding Graduate Director Award.