IRVING, Texas (Jan. 31, 2025) — Earlier this month, the University of Dallas held its annual King/Haggar Ceremony, an awards ceremony to honor dedicated faculty members.
Associate Professor of Theology Fr. Thomas Esposito, OCist, BA ’05, is this year’s Haggar Fellow. Professor of English Theresa Kenney, PhD, is this year’s King Fellow.
The Haggar and King Fellow Awards both recognize excellent teaching and scholarship. The Haggar Fellow, always a junior faculty member with no more than eight years of service, is recognized as an accomplished teacher and promising scholar whose teaching manifests a continuing reflection on the place of his or her own discipline within the mission of the University of Dallas. The King Fellow, always a senior faculty member with more than eight years of service, is a professor whose life and work have made a significant contribution to the excellence of education at the university.
Fr. Thomas, both an active scholar and a familiar presence in the campus community, was praised for his commitment to “serious prayerfulness” and “joyful playfulness.”
“From his academic specialty in the study of the Gospel of Luke to his interest in the role of prayer in exegesis, he exemplifies the broad theological character of his order’s approach to academic theology, always situating it within the living Church,” German professor Jacob-Ivan Eidt, PhD, said of Fr. Thomas.
Provost Matthias Vorwerk, PhD, applauded Kenney’s love for both mentoring students and contributing to her areas of research, primarily medieval literature and the work of Jane Austen.
“[Kenney] exemplifies the best in all the categories of being a professor at the University of Dallas: excellence in teaching, a national and international reputation in scholarship, and a long history of service to the university,” Vorwerk said.
The Haggar Fellow and King Fellow awards are made possible by the generous contributions of the Carl B. and Florence E. King Foundation and Mrs. and Mrs. Edmond R. Haggar.
The following faculty members also received the Haggerty Excellence in Teaching Award, which honors professors for their work with students in the classroom:
- Fr. Thomas Esposito, Theology Department
- Cara Jacocks, Satish & Yasmin Gupta College of Business
- Jonathan Culp, Politics Department
- Scott Crider, English Department
- Kevin Kambo, Philosophy Department
In addition, Haggar Scholar Awards, which support faculty members in their research projects, were granted to the following professors:
- Art Department: Kelly O’Briant
- Biology Department: Inimary Toby
- College of Business: Julia Fulmore, Brett Landry, Laura Muñoz
- Classics Department: Elizabeth Robinson
- Economics Department: Aida Ramos
- Education & Classical Learning Department: Janette Boazman
- English Department: Brett Bourbon, Theresa Kenney, Andrew Osborn
- History Department: Kelly Gibson, Mark Petersen
- Modern Languages Department: Néfer Muñoz-Solano, Marisa Perez-Bernardo
- Philosophy Department: Cynthia Nielsen
Professors were also honored who will soon take sabbaticals to conduct research:
- Biology Department: William Cody, Inimary Toby
- College of Business: Susan Rhame, Michael Stodnick
- Chemistry Department: Jonathan Dannatt
- English Department: Theresa Kenney, Andrew Moran
- History Department: Kelly Gibson
- Modern Languages Department: Marisa Perez-Bernardo
- Philosophy Department: Angela Knobel, Matthew Walz
- Theology Department: Andrew Glicksman
