The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library is proud to announce that Vanessa P. Walker has been chosen as the 2007 winner of the Gerald R. Ford Scholar Award in Honor of Robert M. Teeter. Ms. Walker is a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is completing her doctoral dissertation: Ambivalent Allies: Advocates, Diplomats, and the Struggle for Human Rights in Latin America. She is investigating how human rights became a force in foreign policy by focusing on the relationship between advocacy and policies/diplomacy in the 1970s. More specifically, she examines how this relationship influenced and shaped U.S. diplomacy with Latin America by analyzing several non-governmental organizations and their relationships with Congress and the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations during a series of human rights crisis with Chile and Argentina.
This annual award of $5000 is given to a doctoral student conducting dissertation research and writing on an aspect of the United States political process during the latter part of the 20th century. It was established in 2005 to honor the life and work of Robert Teeter. Mr. Teeter spent over thirty years as a leader in public opinion analysis and campaign strategy, including the 1976 campaign of President Gerald R. Ford. The majority of written materials from Mr. Teeter’s career are part of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library collection. This award has been made possible by the generous support of the Teeter family and friends, and his colleagues on the United Parcel Service Board of Directors.
The application deadline for next year’s award is May 1, 2008. For more information, please visit the Ford Library’s website or contact Stacy Davis at (734) 205-0563 or at stacy.davis@nara.gov.