Appointments

Lincoln H. Blumell was nominated and named to serve as the onsite coordinator/vice president for the Rocky Mountain-Great Plains region of the Society of Biblical Literature/American Academy of Religion. George A. Pierce will serve as his assistant.

Don L. Brugger and Shirley S. Ricks transferred on 1 September as editors from the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Studies to the Religious Studies Center.

Roger G. Christensen was appointed an instructor of Church history and doctrine.

Gerrit J. Dirkmaat achieved candidacy for continuing faculty status.

Scott C. Esplin was advanced to professor and selected as the next Teaching Fellow in Religious Education.

Alonzo L. Gaskill was advanced to professor of Church history and doctrine.

J. B. Haws received continuing faculty status and advancement to associate professor of Church history and doctrine.

Andrew Hedges received continuing faculty status and advancement to professor of Church history and doctrine.

Mark D. Ellison was hired as an associate professor of ancient scripture.

Nicholas J. Frederick achieved candidacy for continuing faculty status (ancient scripture).

Matthew J. Grey received continuing faculty status and advancement to associate professor of ancient scripture.

John L. Hilton received continuing faculty status and advancement to associate professor of ancient scripture.

Richard Neitzel Holzapfel (Church history and doctrine) received the Ephraim Hatch Teaching and Learning Faculty Fellowship.

Shon D. Hopkin received continuing faculty status and advancement to associate professor of ancient scripture.

Kerry Hull received continuing faculty status (ancient scripture).

Daniel K Judd was appointed as associate dean of Religious Education, effective 1 July.

Jared W. Ludlow was promoted to professor of ancient scripture.

Janice J. Martin was hired as an assistant professor of ancient scripture.

Mark D. Ogletree received continuing faculty status (Church history and doctrine).

Dana M. Pike was appointed as chair of the Department of Ancient Scripture with Gaye Strathearn as associate chair, effective 1 July.

Mauro Properzi received continuing faculty status and advancement to associate professor of Church history and doctrine) and was selected to fill the Moral Education Professorship.

Aaron P. Schade has been named as codirector of the Khirbat ‘Ataruz dig in Jordan.

Avram Shannon was hired as an assistant professor of ancient scripture.

Greg Wilkinson achieved candidacy for continuing faculty status (Church history and doctrine).

Awards and Honors

Kenneth L. Alford received the 2016–17 Hollis Prize for his article “South Carolina and Utah: Conjoined as the Nineteenth Century’s ‘Twin Relics of Barbarism,’” published in the 2017 volume of The Proceedings of The South Carolina Historical Association. Alford served in active military duty for thirty years before his retirement in 2008 as a colonel. Some of his military assignments included working at the Pentagon and teaching at the United States Military Academy at West Point and at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. He has published on a wide variety of subjects, but his current research focuses on Latter-day Saint military service, including LDS participation in the American Civil War and the Utah War.

At the Religious Education Spring Social on 11 March 2017, Terry B. Ball received the B. West Belnap Excellence in Citizenship Award. He has been recognized for his research in the Journal of Archaeological Science for authoring one of the three most-cited papers published in that journal in 2016. He has served as associate department chair, department chair, associate dean, and dean of Religious Education. He directed the establishment of the Military Chaplain Candidate Graduate Degree program and is now Religious Education’s graduate coordinator. He revamped the Transfer Professor program and also organized a campaign to establish endowments to meet the growing needs of faculty research and travel agendas. Ball’s religious research has focused primarily on the prophet Isaiah, and he is also an active researcher in the field of archaeobotany.

Michael A. Goodman received the Robert J. Matthews Excellence in Teaching Award. Goodman is an associate professor of Church history and doctrine. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism, master’s in information technology, and doctorate in marriage and family relations. He has worked for the Church Educational System since 1989 as a seminary and institute teacher, as well as a professor at BYU. After earning his doctorate, he was the manager of the Church Educational System’s college curriculum for three years. His areas of research at BYU include marriage and family, LDS doctrine, and missionary work and the international Church.

Kerry M. Muhlestein received the Richard Lloyd Anderson Excellence in Research Award. He is a professor of ancient scripture who joined the BYU faculty in 2006, coming from the BYU−Hawaii Campus. Muhlestein regularly researches in Egyptology and the Old Testament. One of his recent publications was “Joseph Smith and Egyptian Artifacts: A Model for Evaluating the Prophetic Nature of the Prophet’s Ideas about the Ancient World,” featured in BYU Studies Quarterly 55, no. 3 (2016). Muhlestein is the director of the BYU Egypt Excavation Project, currently studying Graeco-Roman culture and the advent of Christianity in Egypt.

Also at the Religious Education Spring Social, Andrew C. Skinner received the Harvey B. and Susan Easton Black Outstanding Publication Award (Gospel Scholarship in Ancient Scripture) for his book To Become Like God: Witnesses of our Divine Potential, published in 2016 by Deseret Book. He is a professor of ancient scripture and Near Eastern studies and holder of the Richard L. Evans Professorship of Religious Understanding at BYU, where he served as dean of Religious Education and as the first executive director of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. His areas of expertise include the Hebrew Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Near East history, and US military history. Skinner currently serves as a member of the Correlation Evaluation Committee of the Church.

Nicholas J. Frederick received the Harvey B. and Susan Easton Black Outstanding Publication Award (Academic Scholarship in Ancient Scripture) for “The Bible, Book of Mormon Scripture, and the Rhetoric of Allusivity,” published in a 2016 issue of BYU Studies Quarterly. He received his doctorate from Claremont University in the history of Christianity with an emphasis in Mormon studies. His research focuses primarily on the intertextual relationship between the text of the Bible and Mormon scripture. Frederick recently coauthored Joseph Smith’s Seer Stones, published by BYU’s Religious Studies Center. As a professor at BYU, he enjoys teaching courses on the Book of Mormon and the New Testament, particularly the writings of Paul and the Book of Revelation.

Andrew H. Hedges received the Harvey B. and Susan Easton Black Outstanding Publication Award (Academic Scholarship in Church History and Doctrine) for his article “Thomas Ford and Joseph Smith, 1842−1844” in the Journal of Mormon History. He received his bachelor’s degree in zoology, master’s in Near Eastern studies, and doctorate in American history. Hedges is an associate professor of Church history and doctrine at BYU and coeditor of Journals, vols. 2 and 3 of The Joseph Smith Papers, where he also served for a time as managing historian. His areas of research include the Nauvoo period and early Utah, particularly the history of Mormons, wetlands, and marshes in the Salt Lake Valley.

Michael Hubbard MacKay received the Harvey B. and Susan Easton Black Outstanding Publication Award (Gospel Scholarship in Church History and Doctrine) for his book Sacred Space: Exploring the Birthplace of Mormonism (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, 2016). He received an engineering degree from the US Air Force and a master of arts degree from the University of York in England, where he was also awarded his PhD. Previous to his current position, he worked as a historian and writer for the Joseph Smith Papers Project. MacKay’s recent books also include Joseph Smith’s Seer Stones and From Darkness unto Light: Joseph Smith’s Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon. He is now an assistant professor in the department of Church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University.

This summer Jeanine Ehat received the Fred A. Schwendiman Performance Award, the highest award given to staff members at BYU. As secretary for the Department of Ancient Scripture, she orchestrates a department with more than sixty teaching faculty and more than twelve thousand students every semester. She joined our staff ten years ago after serving for five years in the Health Professions Advisement Center and has supervised some seventy student employees. She has also served on the OPAC committee (three years), BYU Easter Conference Committee, and Department Rank Advancement Committee.

Cheryl Snelgrove received the Staff and Administrative Employee Recognition (SAERA) on 30 August. Cheryl has been our administrative team in the deans’ office for a good number of years. She works for both associate deans and also serves a variety of general faculty and staff needs. She also functions in key ways to support the graduate program in Religious Education. Dependable and resourceful, she is careful with sacred resources and tries to support and assist with both her own skill development and that of coworkers. She facilitates needs in Religious Education even as the work of this college seems to be constantly growing.

Retiring

Kent P. Jackson (ancient scripture) retired in June, and Dennis L. Largey (ancient scripture) retired in July.

In Memoriam

Lillian Marion Brodeur Wilbur, former executive secretary for the Religious Studies Center, passed away on 4 August.