Jentleson Honored for Scholarship, Public Service

Bruce Jentleson received the 2018 Joseph J. Kruzel Memorial Award for Distinguished Public Service from the American Political Science Association (APSA) on August 31, during the annual conference in Boston. APSA’s International Security Section gave the award.

The Kruzel award recognizes distinguished service in national security affairs both in scholarship and in public service. The award has only been given six times since 1997. It honors the memory of Joseph Kruzel, a political science professor and public servant who died in a vehicle accident outside Sarajevo while serving as a diplomat working on the Balkans peace talks. Kruzel was born in Goldsboro, N.C., taught political science at Duke University and Ohio State, and served in the Air Force and with the U.S. Department of Defense.

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Past recipients include Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Harvard professor and former Assistant Secretary of Defense and National Intelligence Council Chair;  James Steinberg, Syracuse University professor who was Deputy Secretary of State and Deputy National Security Advisor, and Stephen Krasner, Stanford University professor and State Department Policy Planning Director.

“I am deeply grateful for this award,” Jentleson said. “I knew Joe Kruzel, and worked some with him both in our academic positions and while in the Clinton Administration State Department. It is a real honor to receive an award memorializing his achievements and public service.”

Jentleson’s extensive scholarly work includes his 2018 book, The Peacemakers: Leadership Lessons from 20th Century Statesmen, and multiple editions of his American Foreign Policy textbook. From 2009-2011 he was senior advisor to the U.S. State Department Policy Planning Director. In 2012 he served on the Obama campaign’s National Security Advisory Steering Committee. He also served as a senior foreign policy advisor to Vice President Al Gore during his 2000 presidential campaign, in the Clinton administration State Department (1993-94), and as a foreign policy aide to Senators Gore (1987-88) and Dave Durenberger (1978-79). He also has served on a number of policy commissions, including the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Working Group co-chaired by Madeleine Albright (2011-13).

Jentleson also has worked to create a pipeline of policy-engaged scholars, as co-founder of the Bridging the Gap Project funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. For more than 10 years, the project has offered professional training to help professors and doctoral students build the skills need to produce influential policy-relevant research and theoretically grounded policy work.

“I like to think I’ve contributed to our country’s foreign policy in my State Department and other policy positions. I do know how much I’ve learned from my public service, and how these experiences have made me a better scholar and professor,” Jentleson said.

“The Bridging the Gap program that colleagues and I have developed for international relations faculty and Ph.D. students began from a core belief in the value created for both the academic and policy worlds – and for society as a whole - when the two groups connect and collaborate.”