Rebecca A. Glazier, a political science professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, received the 2023 Distinguished Award of Civic and Community Engagement from the American Political Science Association. The award honors significant civic or community engagement activity by a political scientist that merges knowledge and practice and has an impact outside of the profession or the academy.
Professor Glazier studies religion and politics, U.S. foreign policy, and political communication. She is the director of the Little Rock Congregations Study, a longitudinal, community-based research project on religion and community engagement.
Dr. Glazier’s Little Rock Congregations Study exemplifies how political science scholarship can improve civic life in partnership with community partners. The LRCS is a long-term community-based research effort that examines the impact of religion on politics and community life. Beginning in 2012 with five participating congregations and approximately 450 member-respondents and now with 35 participating congregations and more than 2,200 member-respondents. The project is focused on faith-based racial justice, a particularly important topic in a racially-divided city. Congregations have used the findings and programming of the LRCS to prioritize racial justice work, set goals for their congregations, and do the community engagement work that they find most meaningful.
Professor Glazier is the author of Connecting in the Online Classroom: Building Rapport Between Teachers and Students (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021) and the forthcoming Faith and Community: How Engagement Strengthens Members, Places of Worship, and Society (Temple University Press, 2024). She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara.