Elizabethtown College has implemented a new award for excellence in teaching that will be awarded for the first time during this academic year. The Kreider Prize for Teaching Excellence Endowment Fund was created by class of 1972 alumnus Dr. Thomas Conner to recognize a teacher for his or her teaching and commitment to their field of study.
“One of my principal desires in helping the College to create the Kreider Prize for Teaching Excellence has surely been to honor both Ken and Carroll Kreider for the decades of exemplary service they have given as teachers in the fullest sense,” Conner said.
The Kreider family has had an influential role in Etown’s history. Both Ken and Carroll met when they were students at Etown. Later, they returned to the College to pursue their careers, Ken as a professor of European history and Carroll as a professor for the department of business.
Vice President for Institutional Advancement and Community Relations David Beidleman said, “After touching the lives of thousands of students, Ken and Carroll retired after more than 30 years of service. They both continue to be actively engaged with the College through programs such as the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, the Alumni Peace Fellowship, the Blue Jay Athletic Association and the business program. This fund is being established by Conner to honor the Kreiders, express gratitude for his Elizabethtown education and encourage the work of our current and future faculty.”
Conner believes, “one teaches how they were taught.” He also strongly believes professors at small colleges are, “teaching all the time.” Conner likes to reflect upon his own career and regards Ken as an inspirational presence both in the classroom and as an overall powerful mentor and role model. Conner attended Etown during the Vietnam War. Although the campus was divided on many of the issues of the time, Conner stated that Ken taught him a lot about life and faith. “Even though I cannot claim to have embraced every position, Ken took on the important issues of that day. I have never stopped admiring the depth of Christian conviction he has always brought to his points of view. Knowing the strength of his devotion to his family, students, college, church and country has further contributed to the profound mark Ken’s example has made on me as a man, as a citizen and as a teacher,” Conner said.
Conner is currently implementing what he learned during his years at Etown into his own teaching at Hillsdale College, where he holds the William P. Harris Chair and has taught history courses for nearly three decades. The Princeton Review named Conner among the “Best 300 Professors” in the country, and Conner is currently working on a book about the history of the American Battle Monuments Commission.
“Conner chose to create an award in tribute to the Kreiders who inspired him to become a professor. It is our hope that we may engage other alumni, parents and friends to help the College by establishing additional prize funds that will recognize our noble faculty and inspire excellence in teaching, scholarly work and service,” Beidleman said. With the presence of this award, Etown hopes to create more lasting teacher impacts.
“I wish for this prize also to be a belated, but heartfelt and permanent expression of how indebted I will always be to the College, and to all of the teachers and mentors I had there, for equipping me to pursue successfully and joyfully my chosen career and, hopefully, to ‘teach as I was taught’ by so many wonderful people there four decades ago,” Conner said.
