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Professor Richard Matthews Scholarship Award

The faculty and staff members of the Department of Political Science at Lehigh University are pleased to announce the inaugural winner of an endowment created by Jon A. Ballis (Class of 1991) and Susan Ballis in honor of Professor Rick Matthews, who has recently retired from Lehigh University. The recipient of the second Richard Matthews Scholarship Award is Blair Dickinson (Class of 2026). 

The award goes to the graduating Political Science major with the highest grade point average who intends to attend a graduate or professional school in the subsequent fall. Please join us in extending our heartfelt congratulations to Julia on her excellent record at Lehigh!

2026 Award Winner

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Blair Dickinson

Blair Dickinson

Class of 2026

Blair Dickinson is from Houston, Texas, and graduated from Lehigh University with a major in Political Science and a minor in Creative Writing. On campus, she has been involved in the TRAC Writing Fellowship, Phi Sigma Pi National Honors Fraternity, Lehigh Cheerleading Team, and the Brown and White Newspaper.  Her interest in the intersection of education and policy was sparked by her time in Lehigh’s Technology, Research, and Communications (TRAC) Writing Fellowship, where she was given a space to question and converse about what the future of education could look like. She also spent a semester abroad at the University of Amsterdam where she took a “Globalization, Education, and Change” course, which allowed her to better understand the international exchange of education policies and the subsequent effects on students’ learning.

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Julia Klayman '25, political science at Lehigh University

Julia Klayman

Class of 2025 and first inaugural award winner

Julia grew up on Long Island, New York, and graduated from Lehigh University as an Eckardt Scholar with majors in Political Science and Global Studies. During her time at Lehigh, she was actively involved as a campus tour guide, TRAC Fellow, and research assistant. Through her academic work and extracurricular involvement, Julia created an interdisciplinary course of study focused on social justice and sustainable development at both local and international levels. Her research and work with the local NGO, Pathways Development Initiative, in rural Uganda deepened her interest in how legal systems impact communities, ultimately inspiring her to pursue a career in law. She will begin her studies at Georgetown University Law Center in August 2025.

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Richard Matthews, professor of political science at Lehigh University

Professor Richard Matthews

Richard Matthews joined the Lehigh Faculty in 1986 as the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow and rose to the rank of NEH Distinguished Professor at the time of retirement.