Finalists Selected For $200,000 Teaching Award

Three noted scholar-teachers have been selected as finalists for Baylor University's 2004 Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching. The award winner, who will be announced in spring 2004, will receive $200,000 plus $25,000 for his or her home department and will teach in residence at Baylor during the 2005 spring semester.
The Cherry Award finalists are Dr. Harry Stout, Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Religious History at Yale University; Dr. Eleonore Stump, Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University; and Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology, Emeritus, at Yale's Divinity School.
"The Cherry Awards Committee is pleased that we had such a fine group of nominations for the Cherry Award for Great Teaching and that the nominations came from such excellent educational institutions," said Dr. William Bellinger, professor of religion and chair of the Cherry Awards selection committee. "The awards committee found it encouraging to read of so many fine teachers in contemporary higher education. We are particularly pleased that the three finalists are outstanding teacher/scholars and that each of them works in areas related to more than one discipline. We believe each of them will contribute to the Baylor community in his or her visit to the campus."
Stout is the author of several books, including "The New England Soul," a Pulitzer Prize finalist for history and "The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism," which received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for biography as well as the Critic's Award for History in 1991. He co-authored with Nathan Hatch "A Religious History of America" and co-edited with Jon Butler "Readings in American Religious History" and also served as co-editor of "Dictionary of Christianity in America," which received the Book of the Year Award from "Christianity Today" in 1990.
He most recently contributed to and co-edited "Religion in the American Civil War" and is writing a moral history of the American Civil War. He is also co-editing with Jon Butler "Religion in
American Life," a 17-volume study of the impact of religion on American history for adolescent readers and public schools. He also is general editor of the "Religion in America" series for Oxford University Press.
Stump, who is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, obtained her bachelor's degree from Grinnell College, her master's degrees from Harvard University and Cornell University and her doctorate from Cornell. She has published widely on the philosophy of religion, metaphysics and medieval philosophy and has edited several volumes of essays, including "Reasoned Faith and The Cambridge Companion to Augustine," with Norman Kretzmann. "Aquinas," her major study of the famous medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas, will be published by Routledge later this year.
Stump is past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers and of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.
Wolterstorff has been a prominent contributor to the analytical philosophy of religion. His work ranges across metaphysics, epistemology, political philosophy, the history of philosophy, theology and aesthetics and the philosophy of religion. He received his bachelor's degree from Calvin College and his master's degree and doctorate from Harvard University. Before coming to Yale in 1989, he taught at the Free University of Amsterdam, the University of Notre Dame and Calvin College.
He has written 15 books, including "Art in Action," "Works and Worlds of Art," "Until Justice and Peace Embrace," "Lament for a Son" and "Divine Discourse." A sought-after speaker, his lectures include those at Oxford University, St. Andrews University and Princeton University. Wolterstorff served as president of the American Philosophical Association's Central Division and of the Society of Christian Philosophers. He received honorary doctorates from Northwestern College in Iowa, Gordon College and Houghton College. In 1992, Calvin College named him a distinguished alumnus.
The Cherry finalists each will receive $15,000 and will present a series of lectures at Baylor in October. Each will present a Cherry Award Lecture on their home campuses during the 2003-2004 academic year. The home department of the finalists also will receive $10,000 to foster the development of teaching skills.
For more information, contact Linda McGregor, coordinator of the Cherry Award program, at (254) 710-2923 or Bellinger at (254) 710-6310.