PULLMAN, Wash.—The recipient of the 2024 Emerita-Emeritus Society Legacy of Excellence Award is John C. Pierce, lifelong educator, author, researcher, and university administrator who maintains strong ties to faculty, friends, and the community” at Washington State University.

Pierce will present “My Research on American’s Democracy: From Herbert McClosky to Thomas Foley” at a ceremony Tues., March 26, at noon in CUE 518 on the WSU Pullman campus. The event is open and free to the public.

Pierce will also speak at the Foley Institute at noon Wed., March 27, in 308 Bryan Hall, with book co-author Kenton Bird, WSU alum in political science.

Pierce was nominated for the Society’s award by Nicholas Lovrich, last year’s awardee who has co-authored eight books with him. Lovrich will introduce Pierce on Tuesday.

“Receiving this award is wonderful and it means a lot to be recognized by people with whom I have worked for so many years,” said Pierce. “WSU is a special place, and I respect its commitment to its land-grant mission. Pullman is also special because it’s where my wife, Ardith, and I raised our kids.

“It’s always nice to feel like I’m coming home.”

As a professor and graduate faculty member, Pierce served as dean of the (then) WSU College of Liberal arts from 1986-1997 after being chair of the (then) Dept. of Political Science from 1976-1984. He came to WSU in 1973. He was a tenured professor in political science at Tulane University prior to WSU, and also served as a Congressional Fellow with the American Political Science Association in 1970-71.

Following many years in Pullman, the Pierce’s made their home in Colorado, Oregon, and Kansas, and now reside in Missouri. His current appointments reflect ongoing ties and service: Vice Chancellor (Academic Affairs) Emeritus and Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs; affiliate and graduate faculty at the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University in Corvallis; and adjunct research associate/affiliate professor and lecturer at the School of Public Affairs and Administration at the University of Kansas at Lawrence. From 2003-2006, he served as executive director of the Oregon Historical Society.

For Pierce, education is the family business and community service is social capital—how he can further give back to society. With a Norwegian heritage, his parents taught as teenagers in a one-room schoolhouse in Nebraska before the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl forced them west to settle on a farm in Yelm in western Washington. His father died in his forties driving his milk truck; his mother had cooked for farm workers and volunteered on town projects.

Following high school graduation, Pierce went to the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma to study pre-law while remaining near his family. A research job led to a published paper on institutionalized juveniles, and that piqued his interest in research and writing in an academic setting.

The lure of a scholarship led him to the University of Minnesota, where he earned his master’s degree and Ph.D. in political science. A Congressional Fellowship with Idaho’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Frank Church and U.S. Speaker of the House Tom Foley, an eastern Washington Democrat, confirmed that “politics, democracy, and community” were to be the focus of his professional life.

“Those three topics are very important to me and resonated with my own values,” he said.

During his undergraduate years at the University of Puget Sound, Pierce met his wife of now 58 years, Ardith. Her family was from Kansas “close to my own roots in Nebraska, and we had many things in common, such as the fact that she valued education as much as I did and we were both in the Greek system.” Their first son, Forrest, was born in New Orleans, and their second, Lamar, in Pullman where they moved to be closer to both mothers in the Inland Northwest.

Ardith earned her master’s degree in elementary education and her Ph.D. in education administration. In Pullman, she taught and was principal at Jefferson and then Franklin elementary schools. Her service in education continued beyond their time in Pullman.

Additional members of the Pierce family—young grandchildren aside–also are deeply devoted to education. His sister, Muriel, was a special education expert at the University of Washington in Seattle and served in the Peace Corps in Turkey; she now lives in Massachusetts. Son Forrest is a music composer on faculty at the University of Kansas and the recipient of many international awards, while son Lamar holds an endowed professorship in Washington University in St. Louis and is an organizational ethics researcher.

In addition to hundreds of his own articles and essays, Pierce has published around 30 books/monographs/journal symposia; several are co-authored with WSU colleagues. Among his recent academic interests are alternative energy systems, immigration, and civility in state legislatures. Some of his publications, though, are on his personal passion: fly fishing. He is preparing a new book of essays, “Searching for Home, One Stream at a Time.”

“Will I write forever? I don’t know. With every book, I say ‘This has got to be my last.’ But the ideas for more just keep coming,” Pierce said.

Pierce’s WSU Emerita/Emeritus Society Legacy of Excellence Award is the latest in a long line of accolades. This particular award recognizes a professor emeritus who, in retirement, continues to make outstanding contributions to academia, the university, and the community. It has been presented every year but one since 2007.

—

By Bev Makhani

 PULLMAN, Wash.—Washington State University Regents Professor Emeritus and political scientist Nicholas Lovrich is the 2023 recipient of the Emerita/Emeritus Society’s Legacy of Excellence award, presented to honor of his “outstanding contributions to academia, the university, and the community” continuing after his retirement.

Lovrich will deliver the Legacy of Excellence address on the topic of civil discourse at 4:00 p.m. Tues., March 28 in Todd Hall 216. The lecture and reception are open and free to the public.

The topic stems from the research underlying the book Outside Looking In: Lobbyists’ Views on Civil Discourse in U.S. State Legislatures published by WSU Press in 2021 and edited by Lovrich and his colleagues Francis Benjamin, John Pierce, and William Schreckhise.
Lovrich is the 16th recipient of the retired-faculty organization’s top annual honor, first presented in 2007.

“All of the Emerita/Emeritus Society award committee members felt strongly that Nick is most deserving of the award,” said Charley Gaskins, society co-chair. “He has a large number of notable accomplishments prior to and since his retirement, plus he is an active member in the society. We are honored to present it to him for 2023.”

“Receiving the Legacy of Excellence Award means a great deal to me and is extremely gratifying,” said Lovrich. “I’m humbled to be in the company of remarkable people who are prior recipients.”

In good company
As an example, Lovrich said his friend and academic role model James F. “Jim” Short Jr., late WSU sociologist and criminologist, received the award in 2013. Short was someone who favorably impacted the university and its faculty, who was passionate about WSU, and who inspired others, he said. Early in Lovrich’s career, Short introduced him to Thomas S. Foley, 49th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (1989-1995), a Democrat from Spokane.

“For a poli sci guy like me to have the Speaker of the House be from your (university’s) district… well, that was a very big deal indeed.” It was an honor to meet Speaker Foley early on and to go on to establish a relationship that lasted for three decades.

“That’s just one example of why I believe there’s something very special about this place, WSU, and I believe deeply that it’s the people who come to embrace its land-grant mission that make it a special place. I came in 1977 thinking I’d stay two to three years and it’s ended up being nearly 50. I think it has to do with the culture that exists among young scholars starting out here. Once you are accepted by your senior colleagues and have your own grad students to mentor, you come to understand that your WSU academic family has become part of your own DNA. You come to see that the most powerful career impact you can achieve is to empower your grad students to be good teachers, scholars, and mentors.”

Outstanding Contributions
The only child of Yugoslavian immigrants, Lovrich was born and raised in San Pedro, Calif., the Port of Los Angeles. Communicating in Croatian at home, he learned English at school. A high-school student government leader and varsity athlete, he went to Stanford University on a baseball scholarship but finished college on an academic award, graduating cum laude in international relations. He earned his advanced degrees in political science from the U.C.L.A. Prior to joining WSU, he was on faculty at Metropolitan State University of Denver, the University of Denver, and DePauw University in Indiana.

As a WSU professor, Lovrich’s teaching covered: public administration theory and practice; evaluation research, and environmental policy and administration. He spent 25 years with a half-time appointment in WSU Extension with a focus on state and local government policy analysis; environmental policy; criminal justice system reform; and community-oriented policing implementation and outcome evaluation. Upon his retirement he served briefly as development director for WSU’s Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service.

Lovrich supervised 30 Ph.D. students and produced 18 books and monographs and more than 200 peer-reviewed journal articles — including four that are accepted and in press. His research has been cited nearly 10,000 times on the Google Scholar and more than 2,000 times on the Web of Science platforms. His noteworthy awards for research and service include the 2022 Distinguished Scholarships Ambassador Award, the WSU President’s 2013 Faculty Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2010 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences’ Mentor of the Year Award, the 2008 American Political Science Association’s Outstanding Mentoring Award (Public Policy), and the 2006 College of Liberal Arts Dean’s Award for Exceptional Service to the College Award.

His administrative experience includes service as: Interim Chancellor of WSU Spokane; associate chair and director of graduate studies for the Dept. of Political Science; co-director of the Center for Environmental Research, Education, and Outreach; and chair of the WSU Committee on Cannabis Policy Research and Outreach.

Since retiring in 2011—a year after becoming a WSU Regents Professor—Lovrich has been a guest faculty member at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing; affiliate graduate faculty member at Oregon State University; and a senior scholar in residence at Boise State University. He is an affiliate researcher in the WSU Dept. of Criminal Justice and Criminology. He regularly attends academic conferences in political science and criminal justice with his wife and WSU retiree Katherine; they raised their daughter Nichole in Pullman.

Lovrich continues to research and write at his Johnson Hall office in Pullman and stays in touch with friends, colleagues, and former students around the world.

To share congratulations on his award, Lovrich can be reached at his campus email address.

Emeritus Society creates arts and humanities undergraduate research grants

Read the Fall 2018 Newsletter to stay up to date with what our members are continuing to work on, along with ways to connect with the group!