History Professor Receives The University Of Arkansas' Highest Teaching Honor, The Nadine Baum Faculty Teaching Award

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Lynda Coon, an associate professor in the University of Arkansas department of history, has been named this year’s recipient of the University’s highest teaching award, the Nadine Baum Faculty Teaching Award.

"From the beginning of Dr. Coon’s appointment to the history department, she demonstrated her rare gift for teaching," said Jeannie M. Whayne, chair of the department of history. "She urges her students to think critically, not simply mimic what the book or lecture suggests. She understands the importance of active learning strategies and engages them in discussions and debates, allowing students to challenge not only each other but the teacher herself."

Coon joined the UA history department in 1990. Since that time she has been programmatically involved in the education of the university’s student body. One of those examples is her involvement in the development of a two-year honors humanities program called "H2P" — a National Endowment for the Humanities-supported, team-taught course on World Cultures.

"The H2P program has demanded a great deal of the teachers involved in it and has been a smashing success. Dr. Coon’s involvement has helped to make it something the university can be proud of," said Suzanne McCray, associate director of honors studies. "She is the most diligent teacher I have known in the 25 years I have been on this campus."

In addition to her full load of classes in both the undergraduate, graduate as well as the honors level, Coon advises honors students, directs graduate and undergraduate research, serves on scholarship selection committees including the Sturgis Fellowship selection committee, and assists students with graduate school as well as nationally competitive scholarship applications.

With Coon’s encouragement, graduate students under her mentoring have received prestigious fellowships and teaching positions.

Coon’s superior teaching was recognized in 1998 when she was awarded the Fulbright College Master Teacher Award. Also to Coon’s credit are her mentoring skills, which led one of her Ph.D. students, John Charles Arnold, to win the UA Teaching Academy’s Award for Graduate Student Teaching Excellence in 1995. Other awards to her name include a Fulbright College Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities summer stipend, Goethe Institute Fellowship, Philip F. Dupon Fellowship Travel Grant and a Research Incentive Grant from the U of A.

In 1998, Coon became the director for the Fulbright College humanities program, in which she has focused on curriculum development in the areas of gender studies, religious studies and the H2P program. Her areas of disciplinary expertise include the early Middle Ages, the late Middle Ages, the late Roman empire, late antiquity, church history, gender and sexuality, western and world civilizations, and her precedent-setting development of courses in women in Christianity and history of Christianity.

Coon received her master’s and doctorate in history from the University of Virginia in 1986 and 1990, respectively. She did her undergraduate work in history at James Madison University where she graduated summa cum laude in 1983.

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