Dr. John Coats
Dr. John Coats has been selected as the winner of Lee University’s 2017 Excellence in Teaching Award. Lee President Dr. Paul Conn recognized Coats for this honor during May commencement.
The Excellence Awards are the highest honors presented to Lee faculty members and recognize advising, scholarship, and teaching. The oldest award and considered to be superior among the three is Excellence in Teaching. The winner of this award is chosen by a special committee which includes representatives of six different academic departments.
Dr. Coats, a professor of history, joined Lee’s Department of History and Political Science in fall 2006 and currently teaches American history, with a special interest in United States foreign policy. His current research seeks to place Lee’s history in the context of trends in Christian higher education. Apart from the classroom, Dr. Coats finished directing the 11th annual Tour of Historic Homes in Cleveland this past fall.
He recently published an article titled “A Question of Loyalty: The 1896 Election in Quincy, Illinois.” Other recent works include “Half Devil and Half Child: America’s War with Terror in the Philippines, 1899-1902” and “A Place for Faith in the Public Square?” which have appeared in “Enemies of Humanity: The Nineteenth-Century War of Terrorism” and the Maryville Symposium’s proceedings, respectively.
Prior to Lee, Dr. Coats was an associate professor at Quincy University, where he won the Excellence in Teaching Award, directed the Honors Program, and served as the Faculty Athletic Representative. Dr. Coats received his Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Arts from Texas A&M University and his Bachelor of Arts from Baylor University.