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The Martin J. Neeb Teaching Excellence Award

The award honors Dr. Martin J. Neeb and recognizes teaching excellence inside and outside the classroom.

The recipients of this award are voted on by the senior class. The criteria for the award includes excellence in classroom instruction, preparation, educational innovation, student rapport, guidance and advisement of students, involvement and sponsoring of extracurricular activities and professional growth. Throughout the years, each recipient has been a beloved professor of students and their fellow faculty members. Concordia University Texas is honored to have this long lasting tradition and proud of their faculty members who continue to exemplify ministry and educational passion

About Martin J. Neeb

Throughout his life, Dr. Martin J. Neeb was passionate about Lutheran higher education. Neeb was a beloved professor at Concordia University Texas from 1929-1945, at the time called Concordia College, Austin.

He went on to be the first executive secretary for the Board for Higher Education of the Synod. He then founded the Concordia Senior College, with the goal of enhancing the Synod’s ministerial education program. Neeb became the college President in 1954. His dedication to ministry and higher education resulted in him being awarded two honorary doctorates from Concordia University Nebraska and Valparaiso University.

Dr. Neeb passed away in August of 1976 after battling an illness. In light of his ministry and impact on Lutheran higher education, especially his impact on Concordia University Texas during his years of teaching, the Concordia Council voted to name (posthumously) Martin J. Neeb the recipient of the College’s Teaching Excellence award and then proposed the idea of awarding a faculty member with the Martin J. Neeb Teaching Excellence Award.

Martin J. Neeb Teaching Excellence Award Winners

2024
Mary Kay Johnston

2023
Grant Carey

2022
Robin Cook

2021
Jennifer Hofmann

2020
Amber Shammas

2019
Joanne Antrim

2018
Philip Schielke

2017
Cari Chittick

2016
Erik Green

2015
Brent A. Burgess

2014
Laurence Meissner

2013
Abigail Pfiester

2012
Donna Janes

2011
Debra Allen

2010
Gertrude Keiper

2009
Carl Trovall

2008
Curtis Giese

2007
Claudia Teinert

2006
Laurence Meissner

2005
Tom Hilgendorf

2004
Leonard E. Stahlke

2003
Jim McConnell

2002
Beryl Dunsmoir

2001
Paul Puffe

2000
Carl Trovall

1999
John Frahm

1998
Mike Middendorf

1997
Robert Malzahn

1996
Hal Rutz

1995
Susan Stayton

1994
Leonard E. Stahlke

1993
Leroy Tschatschula

1992
Donald Zielke

1991
Barbara Morton

1990
Milton Riemer

1989
Martin J. Neeb, Sr.,
posthumously

Laurence Meissner