wfn.org | Foundations honors four for work in higher education

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

March 20, 2001	News media contact: Linda Green·(615)742-5470·Nashville,
Tenn.     10-71B{134} 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - Annual awards from the United Methodist Higher
Education Foundation are being given to four people for significant
contributions to church-related schools.
 
Receiving awards this year are:
·	Bruce A. Kresge of Rochester, Mich. Kresge is the winner of the
annual Stanley S. Kresge Award, which is bestowed based on dedicated
membership in the United Methodist Church and unselfish support of United
Methodist-related education. The award is named for Bruce Kresge's late
father, a philanthropist.
·	The Rev. Lynn Pries of Naperville, Ill. The campus chaplain at North
Central College, Pries is the winner of the Chaplain of the Year award.
·	Samir Saliba of Emory, Va. Saliba, professor of political science at
Emory & Henry College, has been named Outstanding Educator of the Year, an
award given to teachers in United Methodist-related schools who have made an
extraordinary impact on their students, peers, the institution, church and
community.
·	The Rev. Timothy L. Auman of Winston-Salem, N.C. Named Campus
Minister of the Year, Auman is director of the Wesley Foundation in
Winston-Salem and supervisor of ministries at Wake Forest University, Salem
College and the North Carolina School of the Arts. 

Kresge was nominated for his award by Peter T. Mitchell, president of Albion
(Mich.) College. "In terms of effective leadership, generosity, ethical
conduct, sensitivity to the ethos of a college, understanding the difference
between intrusive management and appropriate governance, and serving as a
role model for fellow trustees, Bruce A. Kresge tops my list," Mitchell
said. 

A 1953 graduate of Albion, Kresge was a family practitioner for 30 years. He
served on Albion's board of trustees from 1966 to 1999 before becoming an
honorary trustee. He has served as a lay leader in his church for 17 years.
Individually or through the Kresge Foundation, of which he is chairman, he
has contributed more than $8 million to his alma mater and other United
Methodist-related schools of higher education. 

Harold R. Wilde, president of North Central College, nominated Pries for
Chaplain of the Year. "Lynn is a wonderful campus minister in the most
classic sense -- counseling troubled young men and women, organizing worship
services, assisting and inspiring undergraduates to go on to seminary, and
managing the difficult moments of tragedy and transition where a
compassionate yet eloquent voice is most needed on a college campus." Pries
receives an inscribed sculpture and a cash award of $5,000 to further the
development of programs sponsored by her office.

Excellence in campus ministry earned Auman the distinction of Campus
Minister of the Year.  "Because of his own development, Tim is able to help
students learn how to develop their own spirituality," said David Riffe,
chairman for Council for Higher Education of the Western North Carolina
Annual Conference. "This is particularly important at this time when many
students come to college with a narrow understanding of the faith. Tim is
able to accept the students where they are and give them a way to go to a
deeper level in their faith journey." Auman receives an inscribed sculpture
and a cash award of $5,000 to further the development of programs sponsored
by the campus minister's office.

Saliba, a political science professor and college leader since 1964, "has
come to represent excellence in every category that the award entails. His
teaching is exemplary, his scholarship significant, and his life is a model
of what a professor's should be," said Thomas R. Morris, president of Emory
& Henry College. Saliba receives an artistic replica of the Cokesbury Bell
and a cash award of $5,000.

The vision of the United Methodist Higher Education Foundation is that it be
economically possible for any qualified United Methodist student to be
educated at one of the denomination's institutions of higher education. 

For more information, contact the foundation at umhef@gbhem.org; P.O. Box
340005, Nashville, TN 37203-0005; phone: (615) 340-7385 or (800) 811-8110;
fax: (615) 340-7048; or at www.umhef.org online.

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United Methodist News Service
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