Dr. Sherry Jordon of the Theology Department has been announced as the recipient of the 2022 Award for Outstanding Faculty Service.
The award, which was inaugurated last year, recognizes outstanding service contributions to the University of St. Thomas that help the university advance its mission.
Dr. Jordon is recognized by her colleagues as a feminist groundbreaker both at St. Thomas and in the field of theology. One of very few women in tenured or tenure-track positions in the Theology Department when she arrived, Dr. Jordon has since worked tirelessly to create a culture of welcome and outreach, especially for women.
She has greatly contributed to the gender-inclusive culture of St. Thomas in her work directing Women’s Studies and through her service on the Affirmative Action Committee (2012) and the Diversity and Inclusion Committee (2013-2015). Her current service on two key advisory committees – Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice – continues her career-long work.
Dr. Jordon has also been lauded as a mentor who has been dedicated to meeting students where they are throughout her many years of teaching in the Academic Development Program (ADP). She has offered her time and expertise to faculty colleagues as well, both within her home department as Chair of the Tenure and Promotion Committee and across the university as a classroom consultant and workshop leader at the Center for Faculty Development.
“It gives me tremendous pleasure to nominate Dr. Sherry Jordon,” Dr. Erika Scheurer of the College of Arts and Sciences wrote in her nomination letter. “Since Fall 1993—and soon concluding with her retirement this spring—Dr. Jordon has served St. Thomas broadly and deeply, both within her discipline of theology and in various cross-disciplinary contexts. Throughout it all, she has promoted a generous ethos of welcome, especially to women, those on the margins, and the vulnerable.”
In recognition of this significant distinction, St. Thomas will make a contribution in Dr. Jordon’s name to the Luann Dummer Center for Women.
