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   Faculty
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Taken from the 2007 Spring Commencement Program, honoring Professor Converse upon his receipt of the honorary degree, Doctor of Science: Philip E. Converse has had a profound impact on our understanding of the electoral process and political behavior. His affiliation with the University of Michigan began fifty years ago when he entered graduate study in sociology, and continued in his three decades of service as a faculty member. He currently is an emeritus faculty member, holding the title Robert Cooley Angell Distinguished University Professor Emeritus. His early academic interest led him to major in English literature, in which he received his bachelor's degree from Denison University and a master's degree from the University of Iowa in 1950. Four days after receiving his degree, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. After several years of service, he studied at the Sorbonne University in Paris and decided to enter programs in the social sciences at the University of Michigan, where he received two graduate degrees, including a Ph.D. in social psychology in the 1950s. He ascended the faculty ranks at Michigan in the Department of Sociology, becoming director of the influential Institute for Social Research before leaving to become the director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, from which he retired in 1994. In his early years at Michigan, he conducted ground Research Center, and established a national reputation for his acute analysis and insight regarding voting behavior in the United States. He co-authored a pioneering book titled The American Voter, which has become a landmark in the history of American politics. He later expanded his remarkable impact by authoring and collaborating on books such as The Human Meaning of Social Change and The Quality of American Life: Perceptions, Evaluations, and Satisfactions. He also published illuminating analyses of voting in Brazil, Canada, and France; during the Cold War he traveled behind the Iron Curtain as the U.S. investigator in a study of the public's use of time in twelve nations on both sides of that divide. His constantly expanding list of publications continues to focus on electoral politics in theory and practice. He has held numerous awards and honors, including a Henry Russel Lectureship at the University of Michigan. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Philosophical Society, and last year he received an honorary degree from Harvard University. |
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