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