J. Roderick Davis, an English professor at Samford University in Birmingham, has received the school’s 2008 George Macon Memorial Award for teaching.
Davis, retired dean of Samford’s Howard College of Arts and Sciences, received the award from Provost J. Bradley Creed during the opening convocation of the spring semester Jan. 29.
The annual award recognizes a faculty member for exceptional performance as a teacher, counselor, friend and inspiration to students.
Davis fulfills every aspect of the criteria for the Macon Award and “embodies the spirit” of the school, Creed said. Davis has endeared himself to students with his gentle wit and compassionate heart, he added. “He patiently listens to their struggles and problems and offers sympathetic words and wise counsel.”
A 1958 graduate of Samford (then Howard College), Davis returned to his alma mater in 1990 as arts and sciences dean after two decades of college teaching in New York and New Jersey. He holds graduate degrees from Boston University and Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Conn., and a doctorate in English from Columbia University in New York.
The Marshall County native is known for his passion for social justice and his work for racial reconciliation. He serves on the board of the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail.
He is an active member of Birmingham’s Baptist Church of the Covenant.
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