Melissa Lane, a political theorist specializing in ancient political thought, has received the Department's annual teaching prize. First awarded in 1988, the Stanley Kelley Award for Excellence is given every year to a member of the politics faculty to recognize outstanding teaching. The prize's namesake, Stanley Kelley, joined the Politics faculty in 1957 and taught at the University for nearly 40 years.

Lane came to the Department from Cambridge University in 2009. Director of the University Center for Human Values, she works at the intersection of political theory, classics, and philosophy and has advised undergraduate and graduate students across all three disciplines. This past fall, Lane taught POL 301 Political Theory, Athens to Augustine, a popular undergraduate course that surveys "the institutions and writings of ancient Greek and Roman thinkers, from the classical period into late antiquity and the spread of Christianity in Rome." A testament to Lane's teaching abilities, one evaluation described the Fall 2021 iteration of POL 301 as "life–changing in that it opened up a new way of thinking about life and the world."

The Department of Politics warmly congratulates Professor Lane on this achievement.