Shaping the Future of Political Psychology, One Person at a Time

When a remarkable academic retires, we can tally their contributions to the field through grant dollars, publications, and substantive advances. While John Sullivan easily meets any measure of excellent scholarship, we believe that the more remarkable story is his approach to mentoring. Sullivan cares foremost about people, and because of this, he was able to engage thousands of undergraduate students in his courses as an award-winning teacher (several of whom went on to graduate school), provide close mentoring for more than 100 PhD students, and build collaborative relationships that helped build a top-rate interdisciplinary political psychology program. Through his successes, Sullivan maintained the work-life balance most academics strive for, but rarely achieve. This chapter focuses on the great impact Sullivan has had on the field of political psychology through his mentorship of students and challenges readers to implement the lessons from his career into their own approach to work in academia.