Dr. Daniel Strait Receives the Frances White Ewbank Award

April 24, 2023

Dr. Daniel Strait, professor of English and associate dean of Asbury University’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, received the Francis White Ewbank Award for Excellence in Teaching. The announcement was made during Academic Convocation to finish the 2022-23 academic year.

“Teaching is an act of love,” Strait said. “I enjoy teaching at Asbury now more than ever, mainly because I have learned a little more over the years about how to inhabit time. Every moment, in every class, in every semester, holds the potential to change a life, including mine.”

The Frances White Ewbank Award for Excellence in Teaching is the University’s highest honor for teaching. Created in 2002 by Dr. Paul A. ’56 and Dr. Kay Fuller ’57 Rader, the award is conferred each year on one full-time faculty member who has demonstrated excellence in teaching effectiveness and spiritual modeling in and outside of the classroom. Each spring, graduating seniors submit nominations which are then reviewed by a committee before a final awardee is chosen and announced at the initial Chapel of the fall semester. Strait received this award previously in 2002 and 2012.

“[Dr. Strait] not only leads a classroom of students to understand but seeks to understand the students in a way that is uniquely kind and promotes student success inside and outside the classroom,” said Asbury University Provost and Chief Academic Officer Dr. Sherry Powers, reading student comments about Strait prior to the announcement. “One student shared: ‘Dr. Strait allows for free thinking in the classroom, and cares about the thoughts of students, not just in the sense that we answer questions and get our work done, but in the sense that we think for ourselves and become good human beings.’”

Strait joined the Asbury faculty 25 years ago. His research interests include exploring the intersections of literature, philosophy, and religion, especially in Shakespearean drama and Renaissance poetry (especially George Herbert). He received his M.A. in English from Florida Atlantic University and his Ph.D. in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

“Asbury University English graduates are working in nearly every profession: in medicine and law, in creative writing and teaching, in marketing, software design, and construction management,” Strait said. “Studying English at Asbury equips students for a life of possibility, as much for the unexpected and the unlooked for as for the carefully planned and purposed.”

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Daniel Strait on being named this year’s Frances White Ewbank awardee. To learn more about Asbury University’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, visit https://www.asbury.edu/academics/schools/arts-humanities-social-sciences/. To learn more about Asbury University’s English Department, visit: https://www.asbury.edu/academics/departments/english/.