Parry awarded Distinguished Scholar Award

University of Arkansas-Fayetteville professors, Karen Sebold and Janine Parry

Dr. Janine Parry (University of Arkansas-Fayetteville) received the Distinguished Scholar Award at the 2020 ArkPSA meet at Henderson State University. She received the award because she has played a vital role in shaping how we see Arkansas Politics for the last two decades. She came to the University of Arkansas in 1998 after receiving her Ph.D. in Political Science from Washington State University. As the director of the Arkansas Poll since 1999, she has allowed other scholars, journalists and the general public to better understand how public opinion has changed in the Natural State during a critical period of partisan realignment. A former president of the Arkansas Political Science Association, she has published more than thirty scholarly journal articles covering a variety of important social and political changes in Arkansas that have occurred both over these last two decades and over the course of the last century. The topics that she has shed light on range from voter behavior in direct democracy to changes in women’s roles in state legislative politics to the effects of term limits. In addition, she has won almost every teaching award that she has been eligible for at the University of Arkansas.