Virginia Sapiro

Virginia (“Gina”) Sapiro is Professor Emerita of Political Science at Boston University and the University of Wisconsin - Madison and Dean of Arts & Sciences Emerita at Boston University. She has published extensively in the fields of political psychology, political behavior and public opinion, gender politics, and feminist and democratic theory. Her major current research project is a history of higher education in the United States, considering this history as a lens through which to explore the development of the American state and society and to offer a wider perspective on what many people describe as the "crisis" of American higher education. A full listing of her academic and leadership accomplishments is available at her website, http://blogs.bu.edu/vsapiro . She moved to Boston University in 2007 from the University of Wisconsin – Madison to become Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, a position she held from 2007-15. Previous to her arrival in Boston, she served on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin - Madison  for 31 years, where she rose through the ranks to become the Sophonisba P. Breckinridge Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies. She also served as Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning and Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. From 1991-97 she served on the National Board of Overseers of the American National Election Studies, the benchmark scholarly survey study of the American electorate that has been running since 1948, and funded by the National Science Foundation. She served as Director and Principal Investigator of ANES from 1997-1999. During these years, she held an appointment as Research Scientist at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, where the study was based. In that capacity she also oversaw the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, a federation of the national election studies of approximately 50 electoral democracies around the world. She has served in many leadership capacities in professional organizations. She is active in her communities through voluntary organizations. She is a founder and Board member (currently Chair of the Board) of Gilmanton's Own, Inc., which operates a year-round nonprofit Market serving the agricultural and artist community. She was previously on the Board of Shelter Music Boston, which provides ~80 professional classical music concerts a year to local homeless shelters and rehab centers and runs a children's program. She is an elected Supervisor of the Checklist in Gilmanton, NH, responsible for ensuring that the voter rolls are accurate, making sure that everyone who has a right to vote can do so. She spends much of her time on her research and writing and gardening ad baking.