In memoriam: Joseph Losco.

Abstract

Our APLS community recently lost one of its most loyal and long-contributing pioneers. Joseph Losco, professor emeritus of political science at Ball State University, passed away on November 14, 2022. Born in Yeadon, Pennsylvania, on September 13, 1949, Joe was the youngest of two children of Italian immigrant parents. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science fromPennsylvania State University and then master’s and doctoral degrees in political science from Temple University. Joe began his teaching career at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he served as adjunct assistant professor of political science from 1981 to 1983. He moved to Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, 1983. He remained at Ball State until 2016, when he became professor emeritus. In addition to his teaching and research at Ball State, Joe served as chair of the Department of Political Science from 2000 to 2014. Following his retirement from full-time teaching and administration, he served as adjunct professor of political science at Loyola University Chicago. Joe’s fields of teaching specialization were political theory, American government, and public policy. He taught undergraduate and graduate courses in those fields, and he was also active as a scholar and leader in those fields. In the field of American government, Joe was coauthor of seven annual editions of AM GOV (2008– 2014), a popular introductory textbook. He was also a pioneer in the use of multimedia in teaching American government, having developed and produced 21 college-level educational videos (some of which also had high-school-level versions). These videos were produced for a variety of publishers, including McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin, D.C. Heath, St. Martin’s Press, and Harcourt Brace. Four of these videos won awards. In the field of political theory, Joewas coeditor ofPolitical Theory: Classic andContemporary Readings (two volumes) and Political Theory: Classic Writings, Contemporary Views. In addition to these edited texts, he authored numerous book chapters, journal articles, and reviews in political theory. In the field of public policy, Joe was not only an author of scholarly articles in the field; he was also a visionary leader. With a million-dollar grant from the Lilly Endowment, he and two colleagues cofounded the Bowen Center for Public Affairs at Ball State. The mission of the Bowen Center and its three component institutes is to advance civic literacy, promote community involvement, enhance public service, and stimulate nonpartisan government research. Joe eventually became the center’s director. In that capacity, he oversaw its numerous programs, including the Hoosier Survey on public policy. The results of this statewide survey are presented annually to the Indiana General Assembly for use in state policymaking. In addition to his campus and public policy leadership, Joe was a leader in several state and national organizations. He served as a member of the national council of the American Association of University Professors, as president of the Indiana Conference of the American Association of University Professors, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union. Joe’s interest in biology and politics began in graduate school at Temple, where he was a student of Elliott White, one of our field’s early contributing scholars (e.g., White, 1972, 1981, 1992). His doctoral dissertation reflected his early interest in the relationship between biology and political theory: “Understanding Altruism: An Inquiry into Various Perspectives on Altruism, Concentrating on the APLS