Dr. Timothy Johnson – 2018 Distinguished Teaching Award Recipient

The American Political Science Association (APSA) presented the Distinguished Teaching Award to Dr. Timothy Johnson at the 2018 APSA Annual Meeting & Exhibition, the world’s largest gathering of political scientists and source for emerging scholarship in the discipline. The award was created on the recommendation of APSA’s Teaching and Learning Committee and has been endowed through generous gifts from APSA members. It signals the central role of teaching in the profession and carries a $1,000 prize.

We are delighted to present the 2018 APSA Distinguished Teaching Award to Dr. Timothy Johnson, Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. Since his arrival at the University of Minnesota in 2000, Dr. Johnson has won every major award the University grants for teaching and advising. We are pleased to add the APSA Distinguished Teaching Award to this impressive list.

Dr. Johnson’s remarkable track record of teaching and mentoring undergraduates and graduate students at the University of Minnesota has also translated into research and co-authorship opportunities for his students. Dr. Johnson has secured almost $2 million in internal and external funding that has been used, in whole or in part, to support funding for undergraduate research, including three National Science Foundation grants. Even more impressive, Dr. Johnson has published a book and seventeen articles or book chapters with students or former students. As Dr. Johnson notes on his CV, this amounts to almost half of all of his scholarly publications. As one of his former students and academic collaborators noted in his letter, “I struggle to imagine someone who better illustrates that excellence in teaching and research are not mutually exclusive.”

His students, colleagues and recommenders praise Dr. Johnson as an exceptional and supportive mentor, and as a devoted, inspiring and impactful teacher. As one of his former Constitutional Law students wrote, “Professor Johnson didn’t just impart facts and dates… he built us a story. He constructed an adventure rich with history and nuance, sacrifice, and the struggle we’ve endured as a nation to build and maintain our country’s core values of freedom and justice.”

We are inspired by Dr. Johnson’s example and grateful for his commitment to shaping and developing the next generation of scholars, thinkers and citizens through his dedication to teaching and mentoring within the discipline of Political Science.