APSA TO REINSTATE CHARLES E. MERRIAM AWARD

The APSA plans to reinstate the Charles E. Merriam Award in 1995. The award should be of special interest to members of the Public Policy Section. The award was established in 1974 to go "to the person whose published work and career, in the judgement of the relevant APSA selection committee, represented a significant contribution 'to the art of government through the application of social science research'"(PS, Winter 1975, p. 42). The award was established to honor Charles E. Merriam on the centennial year of his birth.

Gabriel Almond describes the importance of Charles Merriam to our profession as follows:

Charles Merriam's career in the first half of this century exemplified this combination of innovative political and social science scholarship and practical service to the community and nation. The department he chaired in the 1920s-1940s set the agenda of the political science profession in the post World War II decades. He was the key figure in the founding of the Social Science Research Council, and chaired it in its first decades. His public service included membership in the Chicago City Council, on President Hoover's Recent Social Trends Commission, and President Roosevelt's National Resources Planning Board, and Committee on Administrative Management.
The Charles E. Merriam Award has carried a $500 prize. Its funds were managed by the University of Chicago. The Merriam Award was given from 1975 through 1987. Recipients of the award were: 
	Aaron Wildavsky, 1975
	Alice M. Rivlin, 1976
	James Q. Wilson, 1977
	Don K. Price, 1978
	E. Pendleton Herring, 1979
	Evron M. Kirkpatrick, 1980
	Harold F. Gosnell, 1981
	Richard E. Neustadt, 1982
	Jack Peltason, 1983
	George F. Kennan, 1984
	James L. Sundquist, 1985
	Thomas Cronin, 1986
	Richard Nathan, 1987
After, the award was suspended due to a lack of funds, the Association assumed responsibility for the endowment. In the past few years, Gabriel Almond has taken the lead in providing contributions to establish an endowment sufficient to reinstate a $500 award every other year. He has been assisted by Lucian Pye. Twenty-one hundred dollars ($2,100) more is needed for this endowment. Gabriel Almond and Lucian Pye are forming a task force that will conduct a campaign to raise these funds in order to assure that the Charles E. Merriam Award can be given once again beginning at the 1995 APSA Annual Meeting in Chicago. This is particularly fitting in view of Merriam's leadership of the University of Chicago's political science department.

Contributions to and comments on the Merriam Award are welcome. Please address these to the Merriam Fund, American Political Science Association, 1527 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.