Dr. Eugene Huskey, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Political Science at Stetson University and scholar of politics in Russia and Central Asia, is the recipient of Stetson’s 2012 John Hague Teaching Award for outstanding teaching in the liberal arts and sciences.

The Hague Award, named for the late Professor Emeritus of American Studies and former Honors Program Director John Hague, is presented annually to a faculty member in Stetson’s College of Arts & Sciences. Recipients are selected by students and faculty members of Stetson’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honor society for the liberal arts and sciences.

In announcing the winner of the award, Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences Dr. Grady Ballenger described Huskey as a master teacher, an internationally important scholar and a forceful campus leader.

“Mention his name, we’re told, in a certain capital city or to an analyst in the U.S. embassy, and you’ll find a warm reaction,” Ballenger said, reading from a nomination by one of Stetson’s Phi Beta Kappa students. “Google him and you’ll see articles for major news websites or videos of testimony before Congress.

“One of the most important lessons this professor taught me,” the nomination continues, “is that there is always a rich contextual story behind sets of data and numbers.”

A faculty member at Stetson since 1989, Professor Huskey is a specialist in the politics and legal affairs of the USSR and the successor states of Russia and Kyrgyzstan. He is the author or editor of four books and has published 50 academic articles or book chapters on Soviet and post-communist affairs. His occasional  pieces written for a general audience have appeared in publications such as the Christian Science Monitor, the Wall Street Journal and Salon.com. He has also produced papers or given presentations to the U.S. State Department and other American government agencies as well as to the Organization for Economic and Cooperative Development, and he has given invited lectures at two dozen universities in the United States and abroad.

Huskey earned his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. At Stetson, he teaches comparative politics, Russian politics, Russian foreign policy, Central Asian politics, ethnicity and politics and Western political philosophy.