2022 UNCG NOMINEE – DR. EUGENE ROGERS

Dr. Eugene Rogers

Dr. Eugene Rogers, Professor of Religious Studies and a faculty member in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies program, is UNC Greensboro’s O. Max Gardner Award nominee for 2022. It is the highest faculty honor awarded by the UNC Board of Governors, given annually since 1949. The award was established by Gardner’s wish to recognize faculty who have “made the greatest contributions to the welfare of the human race.” Award winners and nominees have made notable contributions of national or international scale.

Dr. Rogers has contributed to human welfare not only through his teaching, but also by publishing two new books in 2021, one for scholars and one for students. “Blood Theology: Seeing Red in Body and God-Talk” analyzes the language and symbolism of blood and how it is used in social situations, primarily from a Christian perspective. It has been nominated by Cambridge University Press for the award in “Constructive/Reflective Studies” of the American Academy of Religion (the annual academic convention in Religious Studies). It was the subject of a faculty-grad student workshop at the University of Virginia and, internationally, the common reading of the faculty-grad student Theology and Ethics Research Seminar at Durham University in the UK.

The second book, “Elements of Christian Thought: A Basic Course in Christianese” was originally written as a course for online lectures during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has sold over 500 copies and has been inquired about for translation rights. Both of these books provide a deeper understanding of religion and culture.

Dr. Rogers joined UNCG in 2005. His books have been reviewed all over the English-speaking world and translated into Swedish, German, and French. In 2008-2011, the U.S. Episcopal House of Bishops invited him to serve on a panel evaluating the theology of same-sex marriage. In 2013-2014, he served on the Board of Electors for the Regius Professorship of Divinity at Cambridge, the most prestigious academic theological position in the English-speaking world.

Rev. Dr. Aminah Al-Attas Bradford, Th.D., a post-doctoral research scholar at North Carolina State University, says of her former advisor, “Over six years of countless conversations in the classroom and at Rogers’ kitchen table, I have been formed firsthand by the commitments which have come to characterize Rogers’ vast contribution to human welfare writ large: how to transcend stifling boundaries (between religion and science, sacred and secular, the personal and the social), how to cultivate rigorous and respectful dialogue amidst profound disagreement, and how to practice an ethic of hospitality – both personal and intellectual – particularly with respect to sensitive matters of identity, diversity, and inclusion. At present, the uncertainty facing young humanities scholars like me is immense; Rogers’ mentorship has been indispensable, singular, transformative.”

Elizabeth A. Hardin, a 2022 Fellow at the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University and previous executive in residence at UNCG, says, “At every turn, Dr. Rogers emphasized his desire for his students to learn well. In his choice and provision of original and historic materials, in his emphasis on getting things right rather than meeting deadlines (within reason), in his use of writing as a means of learning – in choice after choice, it was clear that Dr. Rogers wanted every student to learn. In class, Dr. Rogers integrated what he said with what he wrote in frameworks that supported learning. The questions he asked and the issues he probed contributed to deep understanding.”

Story by Dana Broadus, University Communications

Photography credit, Dean John Kiss

O. Max Gardner Award Details

AWARD DESCRIPTION

This is the highest faculty honor awarded by the UNC Board of Governors and has been given annually since 1949. This award was established by O. Max Gardner’s will to recognize faculty who have “made the greatest contributions to the welfare of the human race.” Those chosen in the past have been persons who have made notable contributions of national or international scale. One faculty member from each university in the UNC System may be nominated.

Recipients are nominated by their chancellors and one winner is selected by the Board of Governors. The nominee from each university is due to the Board of Governors Committee each year during the fall semester and the award is presented as part of the Board of Governors meeting held in the spring. Deadline dates vary.

Governor Gardner’s will provides that the “Board of Trustees of the Consolidated University of North Carolina “shall pay annually the net income from a trust fund to “that member of the faculty of the Consolidated University of North Carolina, who, during the current scholastic year, has made the greatest contribution to the welfare of the human race. As used in this Article of my will, the term ‘faculty’ shall embrace all person s, including instructors, engaged in teaching in any unit, institution or branch of service of the Consolidated University of North Carolina.”

In January 1973, the Attorney General of North Carolina rendered an opinion that the “coverage of the Gardner Award may be extended to include faculty members at any one of the sixteen campuses which now constitute The University of North Carolina.”

  1. In the fall of each year the Board of Governors will name, or authorize the Chairman to name, a Committee on the Gardner Award. The committee will invite the institutions to submit nominations and will prescribe procedures to be followed.
  2. Selection of a nominee for the Gardner Award generally is accomplished by a committee of the institutional faculty. The written nomination to the Committee should be made by the Chancellor. The nominee’s contributions to the welfare of the human race, however technical the field, should be described in terms a layman can understand.
  3. The will provides that the award shall go to the faculty member ” … who … has made the greatest contribution to the welfare of the human race.” The majority of previous recipients have been persons who made notable contributions of national or international scale, or persons whose contributions, although local, served as models nationally or internationally.
  4. Through the years the committees of the Board have recognized that the selection procedure, which must begin in the fall, makes it difficult to adhere strictly to that provision of the will, which states that the award shall recognize a contribution made “during the current scholastic year.” In order to give as much weight to this clause as is feasible, the committees usually look for nominees who recently made contributions or whose work and service recently culminated in a major contribution.
  5. Campuses are encouraged to review award-winning nominations from previous years.

Oliver Max Gardner (22 March 1882 – 6 February 1947) was the Democratic governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1929 to 1933. Prior to becoming Governor, Gardner was elected as a state senator from Cleveland County, North Carolina and as Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina (1917-1921).

We invite you to learn more about this great man of North Carolina by exploring the Governor O. Max Gardner website.

The will of Governor O. Max Gardner provides that the “Board of Trustees of the Consolidated University of North Carolina” shall pay annually the net income from a trust fund to “that member of the faculty of the Consolidated University of North Carolina, who, during the current scholastic year, has made the greatest contribution to the welfare of the human race.  As used in this Article of my will, the term “faculty” shall embrace all persons, including instructors, engaged in teaching in any unit, institution or branch of service of the Consolidated University of North Carolina.

Nominations may be made by faculty, staff, students, administrators or alumni and should include:

  1. A brief statement giving the reasons the faculty member is being nominated in relation to the parameters of the award, i.e. national/international scope of work, career trajectory culminating in recent accomplishments, and how the work benefits the “welfare of the human race.”
  2. A copy of nominee’s current vita.
  • Eligibility – any member of the faculty
    • “Faculty” shall embrace all persons including instructors, engaged in teaching in any unit, institution or branch of service of the Consolidated University of North Carolina.
  • Procedure – may be nominated by faculty, staff, students, administrators or alumni
  • Nominee – must be willing to work with the committee chair and administrative coordinator to develop materials submitted to the BOG.

Deadline for nominations TBA.

If you have questions, please contact Sarah Myers ([email protected]), Administrative Coordinator

The committee is made up of representatives from each of the academic units:

  • College of Arts and Sciences
  • Bryan School of Business and Economics
  • School of Education
  • School of Health and Human Sciences
  • College of Visual and Performing Arts
  • School of Nursing
  • Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering

Members who serve on the committee are nominated by the Faculty Senate Elections and Appointments Committee and appointed by the Chancellor to serve a three year term. There are two ex officio members(University Relations and Office of the Chancellor) and one Administrative Coordinator (provided by the Provost). The Committee recommends a nominee to the Chancellor and Provost. The Chancellor and the Provost make the nomination to the Board of Governors.

Link to a .pdf of UNCG Committee

PAST AWARD RECIPIENTS

Click for a .pdf file of past award recipients.