A Human Rights Pioneer
There aren't many professors who can say they helped found an entire field of study, but DU's Jack Donnelly is one of them.
Donnelly, a professor and the director of the Graduate School of International Studies PhD program, was one of the early researchers to specialize in studying human rights.
Donnelly stumbled across the subject during the 1970s when he was a PhD candidate looking for a dissertation topic. Nobody was studying it at the time, Donnelly says. But human rights advocacy and research expanded exponentially in the 1980s, and today it is a common topic in academia and the media.
"People who studied human rights 10 years before I did just studied it on the side," Donnelly says. "I came on the scene at the right time."
Over the course of his career, Donnelly has authored three books and more than 50 articles and book chapters. His work has been translated into seven languages.
His book Universal Human Rights is considered among the most important manuscripts on the topic.
"[The book] is a central work in the field, and he is widely respected," says David Forsythe, professor of political science at the University of Nebraska.
For his accomplishments, Donnelly was recognized with DU's 2005-2006 Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award.
Topic: Human Rights
Donnelly is known for his challenging courses and difficult subjects. While he may be demanding of his students, they usually come away with sharpened academic ability.
"Jack is great at what he does because he forces students to work, to use their heads," says GSIS PhD student Mandi Donohoe of Sandy, Utah. "To be honest, it can be frustrating, but at the same time it is always, always rewarding."
"I appreciated the academic rigor and intensity I found in taking many of his classes," PhD student Sally Kwitkowski of St. Charles, Ill., explains. "The topics of his courses and the topics he is willing to explore in his classes made for some of my best and most positive experience in the classroom setting at GSIS."
Donnelly says he enjoys teaching human rights just as much as he enjoys researching it. He's most proud of the fact that human rights are now being discussed with an academic rigor that wasn't possible when he began his work.
"When I started, I was trying to fit all of the pieces together," he says. "Now, the pieces fit and we can talk about human rights in much more serious ways."
Published on Dec. 11, 2006