Dr. Elza Tiner, professor of English at Lynchburg College, is the recipient of the 2005 T.A. Abbott Award for Faculty Excellence from Higher Education and Leadership Ministries. The award is the most prestigious recognition that the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) gives to faculty members of Disciples-related colleges and universities.

Recipients of the T.A. Abbott Award are affirmed by their institutions as professors who inspire students toward excellence, continue to grow and learn in their academic discipline, and practice a personal faith.

The HELM Board of Directors bestowed the award on Tiner at its board meeting April 29-May 1 in St. Louis, Mo. She will receive $1,000 to be used for expanding her library, developing new courses, or continuing education and research.

Tiner, 53, has been at Lynchburg College for 15 years. She has degrees from Seton Hall University and the University of Toronto and has been a visiting professor at Harvard University. Her research interests include the history of rhetoric and composition, medieval drama, and computer technology.

Her publications include articles about Shakespearean theater, English composition and grammar, and computer networking and programming. Upcoming publications include a grammar textbook and papers on teaching writing and critical thinking using Aristotle's Rhetoric, and on a teaching method that helps students see how sentence grammar relates to the larger composition.

Tiner's husband, Dr. Harold Butner, is an astronomer at the Joint Astronomy Centre in Hilo, Hawaii.

The T.A. Abbott Award, presented now for the 22nd consecutive year, was established through a gift to HELM from the descendants of the Reverend T. A. Abbott, a student and later a trustee at Christian University (now Culver-Stockton College). In the 1880's and early 1890's, Abbott pastored local congregations in Missouri, and from 1886 to 1910, he was the corresponding secretary of the Missouri Christian Missionary Society. He died in 1914.

Nominees for the T.A. Abbott Award must be full-time teaching faculty at Disciples-related institutions of higher education. Criteria for selection include quality of teaching, personal example, and commitment to the integration of Christian faith and learning.

Tiner is the fifth Lynchburg College faculty member to receive the award. Previous recipients are John R. Scudder, Jr. (1986), G. Kenneth West (1989), Phillip H. Stump (1996), and Michael W. Santos (2000).

HELM works to nurture transforming leadership for the church in partnership with Disciples congregations, higher education institutions, campus ministry programs, regions, general ministries, and other agencies of the church.

• T.A. Abbott Award winners, 1984-present
  
• Print-quality photo of Dr. Tiner