By Jack Llewellyn
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I just learned recently that Jim Moyer has been selected for the Missouri State Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching, the university’s highest honor in teaching. A professor in Religious Studies, who was chair of the department for more than two decades, it is hard to imagine a teacher more deserving than Jim. In the past, Jim has received university and college teaching awards, and in 1999 he was selected for Missouri State’s Outstanding Advisor Award, followed by an Outstanding Advisor Award from the Missouri Academic Advising Association. With Victor Matthews, also of the Department of Religious Studies, Jim is the author of a popular textbook, Old Testament: Text and Context,which has just appeared in the third edition. In addition to work that he has done year after year to raise the standard of teaching in Religious Studies, in 2009-2010 Jim was chosen as a Provost Fellow for Teaching and Learning and he has continued to mentor new faculty from across the university in the years since. If you don’t have a few minutes to talk, don’t ask Jim how things are going in his classes, because he is bound to have a story or two to tell you about something new that he is trying to improve the success of his current students. His enthusiasm for helping students is undiminished even after a distinguished career dedicated to that over more than four decades.