Contact: Bruce Conley, News Information Director
Phone: (605) 274-5526
Fax: (605) 274-4903
e-mail: bruce_conley@augie.edu
www.augie.edu

May 24, 2004

Three Augustana Faculty Recipients of Teaching Awards

SIOUX FALLS - Three Augustana faculty received teaching awards during the college's 144 commencement exercises Sunday, May 23.

Janet Blank-Libra, assistant professor and director of journalism, received the Vernon and Mildred Niebuhr Faculty Excellence Award.

The Vernon and Mildred Niebuhr Faculty Excellence Award was established to provide an annual award to recognize excellence in teaching. The winner is chosen for brilliance in classroom teaching. The award is provided by Dick Niebuhr, Aberdeen, SD, who graduated from Augustana in 1966. It is named in honor of his parents, Vernon and Mildred Niebuhr, "because they loved Augustana College dearly and because they were my first and best teachers." The recipient of the award receives $5,000.

Blank-Libra is the seventh faculty member to receive the Vernon and Mildred Niebuhr Faculty Excellence Award. She has taught at Augustana since 1988.

Peter Schotten, professor of government/international relations, received the Frederick C. Kohlmeyer Distinguished Teaching Professorship.

Dr. Frederick C. Kohlmeyer, through a gift to Augustana upon his death in 1990, established this distinguished professorship to recognize and to reward outstanding teaching. The recipient of this award receives a summer stipend of $5,000 for each of the two years of the award.

Schotten is the sixth faculty member to receive the Frederick C. Kohlmeyer Distinguished Teaching Professorship. He has taught at Augustana since 1974.

Maureen Diggins-Hutcheson, professor of biology, received the Orin M. Lofthus Distinguished Professorship.

Dr. Monroe Paulson, class of 1943, and other students of Dr. Lofthus, professor of biology at Augustana from 1935-1945, to honor his memory and encourage his kind of teaching excellence among today's Augustana faculty, established the Orin M. Lofthus Distinguished Professorship in 1989. Each Orin M. Lofthus Distinguished Professor receives a three-year appointment and a $10,000 award.

Dr. Diggins is the sixth faculty member to receive the Orin M. Lofthus Distinguished Professorship. She has taught at Augustana since 1979.