Three Faculty Members Celebrated with Distinguished Achievement Awards
Three College of Liberal Arts faculty members have been recognized for their outstanding commitment, performance, and positive impact.
By Rachel Knight ‘18
University-Level Distinguished Achievement Awards are one of Texas A&M University’s highest professional honors. Three College of Liberal Arts faculty members, Margaret Ezell, José Luis Bermúdez, and Elizabeth Robinson, are among the 2021 Distinguished Achievement Awards recipients.
The Association of Former Students has recognized outstanding Texas A&M faculty and staff for their commitment, performance, and positive contributions to students, Texans, and the world since 1955. Only 1,122 professionals (not including this year’s recipients) have received this award since its establishment.
All three 2021 College of Liberal Arts recipients expressed deep and sincere gratitude for the recognition.
“It’s a great honor to receive an AFS Distinguished Achievement Award for Research, and I am particularly pleased that the selection committee has recognized the value of interdisciplinary work in the humanities and social sciences,” Bermúdez, professor of philosophy and Samuel Rhea Gammon Professor of Liberal Arts, shared.
Margaret Ezell, distinguished professor of English and John and Sara Lindsey Chair of Liberal Arts, echoed Bermúdez’ sentiment.
“To receive a University level award for research from the AFS is an honor for me indeed,” Ezell explained. “That research, however, has been motivated and sustained by my students and my colleagues, both here at Texas A&M and elsewhere, and inspired by those voices in the past, who still need to be heard today.”
Like Bermúdez and Ezell, the college’s third and final recipient said she was also delighted by the exciting news.
“When I received the notification, I literally sat in my office and shouted,” Robinson, an instructional English professor, said. “If there had been anyone else in the building, I suspect they would have come running!”
In addition to her excitement, Robinson shared feelings of gratitude for the Association of Former Students, her colleagues who wrote the nomination, and both her current and former students who wrote letters for her nomination packet.
“I tell everyone I know that I teach the most wonderful students in the world, and I truly mean it,” Robinson explained. “Aggies are brilliant, innovative, passionate, genuinely caring and compassionate, and willing to invest their lives in others, even in the faculty who teach them. My students have allowed me to share in their worlds in ways that make me so thankful; they aren’t just students; they are amazing human beings who have enriched my life in ways I cannot express. … That the Association of Former Students is honoring me with this award for my relationships with my students is just amazing, especially because every day that I spend with my Aggies I thank God for the blessing of being in their world and in their lives.”