Christensen wins Jefferson Award

Lawrence O. Christensen

The University of Missouri System honored the winners of its top awards for teaching, research, and scholarly excellence at a dinner held May 27 in conjunction with the Board's meeting at UM-Kansas City. The educators recognized are selected by a panel of UM System faculty from the four campuses.

Lawrence O. Christensen, professor of history, University of Missouri-Rolla, is the winner of the University of Missouri System's 1999 Thomas Jefferson Award.

Christensen, who has taught at UMR since 1969, has been selected as one of the campus's outstanding teachers seven times in his career.

He is a recipient of the Amoco Outstanding Teacher Award and twice received a UMR Faculty Excellence Award. In 1993, the UM Board of Curators named him Distinguished Teaching Professor. He received the Governor's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1995.

The award, which is funded through a grant from the Robert Earll McConnell Foundation, carries a $5,000 stipend and goes to a faculty member who "through personal influence and performance of duty in teaching, writing and scholarship, character and influence, devotion and loyalty to the University best exemplifies the principles and ideals of Thomas Jefferson."

Christensen teaches survey courses in U.S. history and in topics such as the American South, Black America, and Missouri history. He also teaches an interdisciplinary course, "The Mississippi River: Humanities and Civil Engineering." He is the author of numerous publications, including the book UM-Rolla: A History of MSM/UMR.

Christensen earned a bachelor's degree in education at Northeast Missouri (now Truman State) University in 1960 and his master's degree at the same institution in 1962. He was awarded a Ph.D. in history from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1972.

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