A Spartan fan since childhood, MSU PLS alumnus Jack Katosh endows four new scholarships for Political Science undergraduate students

December 11, 2024 - Karessa Weir

John P. “Jack” Katosh was born in Chicago and moved to Michigan at the age of 13 when his father was hired by Ford Motor Co. He graduated from high school in 1965 and knew since the age of five or six that he wanted to be a Spartan. 

“They were a championship football team in the early ‘50s, and, as such, many of their games were on TV (a rarity then), which I loved to watch,” Katosh said


When he was a senior in high school, he applied to both MSU and the University of Michigan. He was accepted by both but “everyone who really knew me knew I was going to go to Michigan State,” he said, since he had made his fandom of MSU football well known. 

“I was the first person to go to college from either my mom’s or my dad’s families so the whole experience was very new,” he said. Katosh was not sure what he wanted to study when he went to MSU, so he started out as a “no preference” major for his first two years. 

“I was thinking it would be math. I’ve always been really good at math,” he said. “But near the end of my sophomore year, I took a couple of Political Science classes, as I had always been interested in government. I liked the courses so at the end of my sophomore year, I declared for Political Science. And it was a great choice.”

This great choice, combined with work he did with the late Dr. Ada Finifter, set him up for a career in public opinion research and polling.

At that time, the Political Science Department had just moved into South Kedzie Hall, where it remains today. Katosh concentrated his classes in US politics.

Finifter, who taught at MSU from 1967-2008 and would go on to edit the prestigious American Political Science Review, got him interested in research methods, and he later did an independent study with her. It was with Finifter and her methodology courses that Katosh developed a strong interest in using survey research data to analyze voting and political behavior. This experience was a stepping stone to a lifetime career doing quantitative and qualitative research in social, political, and marketplace arenas.

W hile at MSU, Katosh was enrolled in the Army ROTC program. As part of that program, he received a two-year scholarship, was awarded the Chicago Silver Medal his junior year, and participated in the flight training program, earning a private pilot’s license. After being commissioned, Katosh served four years active duty as a fixed-wing pilot, including seventeen months in Vietnam, and then as a logistics officer for an armored cavalry squadron at Ft. Meade, Maryland. 

Following his military service, Katosh attended graduate school at the University of Michigan, studying American Government and Political Behavior. In his third year, the professor who ran the Center for Political Studies gave him a job at the American National Election Studies. 

“After that, I knew I didn’t want to go into academics, so after doing everything but my dissertation, I moved to Washington D.C. ” Katosh said. He started looking for jobs in surveys and polling and landed his first one in the Social Research department of a national trade association.

“We examined political and economic statistics,” he said. “I was the editor of a publication on the Baby Boom Generation and also wrote a chapter on the politics of that cohort.”

Katosh has remained in D.C. From his first job, he worked as the research director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. After that, his former boss, who had formed his own research company, asked Katosh to join him. He eventually became Executive Vice President of the firm. 

For 30 years, Katosh conducted qualitative and quantitative market research projects for membership groups, professional organizations, and financial services companies. 

In 2000, he finally made the leap and formed his own company, which focused on market and opinion research, customer relationship management, program evaluation, outreach, quality management,  and one-on-one interviews with executives and senior professionals. 

“For reasons not entirely clear to me, I had a real knack for that,” Katosh said. “I never had any formal training in it but I worked with people who did and thought ‘I could do that.’ And I did.”

Following the 2008-9 recession, Katosh found himself on the job market again, eventually taking a position as a supervisor in the Department of Homeland Security. There, he worked with the e-Verify program to ensure applicants are eligible to work in the United States. Before long, he was back in research and surveys, working with other government agencies who use the biometrics data collected by Homeland Security.

He remained with the federal government until his retirement in 2018. And with that came a desire to give back to his roots at Michigan State University. 

“The seeds to my career were embedded in me at Michigan State,” Katosh said. “Now I’m in a position where I’ve had a good career, invested well and at a point in my life where I’m able to ‘give back’ in a hopefully meaningful way. Each of the scholarships is geared to mirror some aspect of my career.” 

His experience with studying US politics, expertise in survey research, and participation in ROTC are reflected in the four awards he created for Political Science students, including:

• The Jack Katosh Political Science American Government Award, which will provide tuition assistance to undergraduate students pursuing a major in Political Science who have participated in research in American Government.
• The Jack Katosh Undergraduate Research and Experiential Learning Award, to assist undergraduate Political Science majors who have indicated an interest in survey research and/or interning for a research firm or political campaign. 
• The Jack Katosh Political Science ROTC Award, to assist undergraduate Political Science majors who also participate in MSU’s Army Reserve Officer Training Corps program. 
• The Jack Katosh D.C. Study Away Scholarship, which will help undergraduate Political Science majors who are participating in a Study Away program with internships in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. 

For all of these, Katosh’s goal is to assist students complete their undergraduate studies and launch their careers.

“So many of our students are only able to attend MSU and participate in valuable experiences like internships because of the generous support of our alumni and other friends, “ PLS Chair Jeff Conroy-Krutz said. “Jack’s gifts help ensure that future generations of Spartans will have these opportunities.”

For more information about these scholarships and how to fund one of your own, please contact Senior Director of Development for the College of Social Science Alex Tripp at actripp@msu.edu.