About the Award

The Lawrence G. Haggerty Faculty Award for Research Excellence recognizes scholarly distinction at Marquette University. The award is Marquette's highest honor for research and scholarship.

In 1998, Haggerty Enterprises, Inc., announced the endowed award, established to honor Lawrence Haggerty. Throughout his career and until his death in 1994, Lawrence Haggerty generously supported Marquette through various initiatives, including his sponsorship of the Reverend John P. Raynor, S.J., Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence. Thus, it is a fitting tribute that the Lawrence G. Haggerty Faculty Award for Excellence in Research complements, in the name of scholarship, Lawrence Haggerty’s all-encompassing belief in excellence. For more information on the history of the award, visit the University Honors page.

Current Recipient

Dr. Steven Avella, Professor of History  

Dr. Steven Avella effortlessly combines his twin vocations - as an ordained priest and as a scholar - in his teaching, community outreach, and scholarship. He has brought scholarly rigor and a critical perspective to an old but often staid genre of historical writing: the diocesan history. He was one of the first historians in the U.S. (or anywhere) to integrate social and political contexts into diocesan histories. His work has helped to explain the complicated transformations in the Catholic Church in the decades since the Second World War.

His leadership in the "cultural turn" in this field is evidenced by his election to the presidency of the most important association of historians of Catholicism in the United States. At the same time, he has become a beloved classroom teacher, mentored over a dozen PhD students, and brought his scholarship to the public in dozens of public lectures and presentations to diocesan organizations.

Watch Dr. Avella honored at this year's virtual Distinguished Scholars Reception.

 

Past Recipients

To view past recipients of the award, view the University Honors page.

Nominations 

To Be Announced.