Dr. Ronald King Awarded Honorary Degree
Ronald King, Professor and Chair of the Political Science Department, was awarded an honorary degree, “Profesor Onorific de Ştiinţe Politice,” by the Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai (Cluj-Napoca, Romania), on June 1, 2007. The award ceremony included the presentation of a university medal (see photo attached) and a formal lecture by Professor King, “The Politics of Democratic Expansion and Contraction,” which will be published in the Romanian journal, Studia Politica.
Babeş-Bolyai University was first founded in 1581 and is the leading academic institution of Transylvania. The Faculty of Political and Administrative Sciences was established in 1995, following the fall of communism. It is generally considered the most modern such Faculty in Romania and is home to so-called “Cluj School” of empirical social science. The Faculty prides itself on its academic rigor and multicultural perspective, with classes taught in Romanian, Hungarian and German.
Professor King has been involved with the Political Science Faculty in Cluj since its origins. He spent five months in residence as a Fulbright scholar in 1995, and another five months in residence in 2001. He also served for many years as senior consultant for curriculum development on a grant administered by IREX and the ACLS. He continues regularly to visit and advise the faculty, and to teach short-classes for its masters program in empirical research methods.
Professor King has broadly promoted the development of political science in Romania. He serves as President of the Jury for the Ratiu Foundation research grant competition on Romanian democracy, and he acts as international liaison for the Romanian Society of Political Science, that has awarded him a Certificate of Appreciation, "For Nurturing Romanian Political Science” and which presents the Best Paper award at its annual meetings in his name.
