Fr. Clyde F. Crews, professor emeritus at Bellarmine University, was honored at the 2016 ACHA Annual Meeting with the American Catholic Historical Association’s Distinguished Teaching Award.
Editor’s note: Unfortunately the Rev. Clyde F. Crews was ill and was forbidden to travel to Atlanta by his doctor. He was, however, able to hear the proceeds this afternoon by telephone).
Award citation
Fr. Clyde F. Crews of Bellarmine University is a graduate of that institution, having earned his B.A. from the then named Bellarmine College in 1966. As a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship recipient, he received his M.A. and Ph.D. in History of Christian Thought at Fordham University. Ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Louisville, in 1973, Fr. Crews returned to Bellarmine that same year where he then taught theology for the next thirty-plus years. His scholarly, academic and teaching interests have ranged from investigating local southern Catholic history to English Catholic modernism and on to American Catholic popular culture. During his career, he routinely earned the rarest of academic accolades: the virtually unanimous admiration and respects of his students. Over the years, Fr. Crews proved to be a teacher, who understood Catholic higher education’s formative role. As an instructor, his courses were well subscribed, his teaching style engaging, his attention to student needs, admirable. His authentic teaching and his commitment to formation mutually reinforced. For those reasons, the University recognized his excellence in teaching by naming him a Wyatt Fellow. Clyde F. Crews has been a teacher, a mentor and a friend to many generations of Bellarmine students. He retired from Bellarmine’s theology faculty in 2007 and remains professor emeritus.
It is for his devotion to his students, his commitment to higher education, and his excellence in teaching that Clyde F. Crews is the 2016 American Catholic Historical Association’s Distinguished Teaching Award recipient.