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May 2, 2007
 Morningside College President John Reynders announced today that Dr. Stephen Davis, professor emeritus at Emporia State University in Kansas and visiting distinguished professor of psychology at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, Texas, will be the featured speaker at the college’s 109th spring commencement exercises to be held Saturday, May 12, at 2 p.m. on the campus lawn in front of the Hickman-Johnson-Furrow Learning Center, 1601 Morningside Avenue.
The commencement exercises are open to the public, as is the baccalaureate service, which will be held the previous evening, Friday, May 11, at 5 p.m. in Grace United Methodist Church, 1735 Morningside Avenue. Bishop Gregory V. Palmer (right), bishop of the Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church, will deliver the baccalaureate sermon.
During Saturday’s commencement exercises, the college will present an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree to Davis, in recognition of his commitment to life-long learning, civic responsibility, and ethical leadership, the tenets of Morningside’s mission.
Davis (above) is one of the founding evaluators for Morningside’s Sharon Walker Faculty Excellence Awards. Presented each year, the awards recognize faculty members who exhibit excellence in teaching, effective advising, scholarship, and service to Morningside College during the previous academic year. Davis was instrumental in establishing the policies and procedures surrounding the awards and is the longest serving evaluator.
Davis, whose career spans more than 40 years, was awarded the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP) Presidential Citation for Career Contributions in 2004. He is a widely-published author, with more than 270 publications to date. Most recently, he served as co-editor of Handbook of the Teaching of Psychology, published in 2006 by Blackwell Publishing, the world’s leading society publisher located in Oxford, England.
He has given more than 800 presentations, including such diverse topics as “The Responsibilities of Senior Faculty in Mentoring New Faculty,” “Academically Dishonest Rats Consume Yucky Tasting Stuff Before Engaging in Discrimination at the Shopping Mall,” and “The Elixir of Professional Development for You and Your Students.” Most recently, he presented at the annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association in Tucson, Ariz.
Davis holds a doctorate degree in general-experimental psychology from Texas Christian University and master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Southern Methodist University.
He and his wife, Kathleen, reside in Lindale, Texas, and have one daughter, Jennifer.
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