Dr. Mary Louise “Mel” Bringle, Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies and Chief Faculty Marshal at Brevard College, has been named the 2025 recipient of the Jerry G. Gaff Faculty Award for Outstanding Teacher by the Association for General and Liberal Studies.
Bringle was chosen from a national pool of nominees for this year’s award that recognizes faculty who have “demonstrated leadership on their campuses, shown evidence of outstanding teaching in general and liberal education courses, and have a record of achievement in curriculum development, innovation, or implementation.”
The award represents the latest example of academic excellence at Brevard College, which is ranked number four in Best Undergraduate Teaching (Regional Colleges South) by the 2025 U.S. News & World Report college rankings. Brevard joins an esteemed group of institutions that have produced past winners of the AGLS Jerry G. Gaff Faculty Awards, including Clemson University, Emory University, Temple University, Virginia Tech University and University of Memphis.
Bringle, entering her 26th academic year teaching at Brevard College and 43rd year overall as a college professor, was unanimously selected as the nation’s Outstanding Teacher by the AGLS awards committee.
The awards committee was impressed by Bringle’s “decades-long commitment to general and liberal education, her pedagogical creativity, and her leadership in Brevard College’s Learning in Community (LiNC) program. Her work exemplifies the deep integration of teaching excellence, curricular innovation, and the spirit of liberal learning.”
Over the last two decades at Brevard College, Bringle has made major contributions to the General Education program and core curriculum as well as helping to pioneer the College’s LiNC program which creatively matches together courses and professors from two different disciplines to provide students with a variety of perspectives on a subject. Furthermore, she served as the Coordinator of the Integrated Studies major for the past 12 years where she oversaw 75 different interdisciplinary major projects.
All the while, Bringle has been a stalwart in the classroom where she primarily teaches freshmen and sophomores, a rarity for a professor of such distinction. In fact, the majority of students will have taken at least one class with Bringle by the time they graduate from Brevard College.
“My passion has always been for first-year and sophomore students who are just at the beginning of their educational journey and willing to be challenged,” said Bringle shortly after learning of the award. “To receive an award for teaching in general education is a very nice seal of approval on what I have been doing for the past four-plus decades.”
Bringle has designed and taught 11 different Learning in Community (LiNC) courses with a variety of professors in her career at Brevard, ranging from fine arts to social sciences to science and mathematics to the humanities. Notable examples include a LiNC offering that combined environmental theology and environmental literature as well as her religion course on C.S. Lewis paired with a British literature class from the English Department.
This fall, Bringle will be teaching two sections of her quintessential class “Introduction to Symbolic Logic” as well as an Honors seminar titled “Good Thinking”.
A native of Greensboro North Carolina, Bringle decided she wanted to be a teacher at the age of five and never looked back. After attending Page High School in Greensboro, she began her journey in academia at Guilford College, earning a B.A. in French and Religion. Bringle went on to earn a Ph.D. in Theological Studies from Emory University with an emphasis in Pastoral and Practical Theology.
Dr. Bringle arrived at Brevard College in July of 2000 after 17 years at St. Andrews Presbyterian College. Over her four-plus decades of teaching, Bringle has won numerous awards and honors, including being named a Faculty Member of the Year multiple times. She is a past recipient of the Sam Ragan Award for Contributions to the Arts in North Carolina as well as the “Unsung Heroine” Award from Emory University.
The nomination for Bringle was submitted by Brevard College Associate Professor of History Dr. Jordan Kuck with letters of support from Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. Jennifer Frick-Ruppert and Assistant Professor of English Dr. James Everett. Bringle will be recognized this October on the national stage at the AGLS Constitute in Louisville, Kentucky.
What They Are Saying About Dr. Mel Bringle:
“Our faculty at Brevard College is a strong group of scholars and teachers. Dr. Bringle is an exemplar of what it means to be a dedicated and impressive scholar in her own field while simultaneously focusing on high quality teaching in general education classes. Her classes are in high demand, with students telling each other to be sure to ‘take a class with Mel,’ and most of our graduates have been students of hers at some point in their college career. At a large research university, a scholar such as Mel would only teach upper-level courses to majors in her fields of Religion and Philosophy. However, here at Brevard College, she teaches introductory courses that students majoring in any area can take, and all her courses focus on how to think thoughtfully about complex material and how to work collaboratively with others. We are lucky to have Dr. Bringle at Brevard College, both for her scholarship and her dedication to our students.”
– Dr. Jennifer Frick-Ruppert, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty/Dalton Professor of Biology and Environmental Science
“Brevard College has a knack for attracting pedagogically gifted faculty. Truly, it’s a special place to live and learn. We’ve long known this, but it is gratifying that some of our faculty are now winning national awards. Dr. Bringle has earned this prestigious prize. Her exemplary teaching and outstanding service to our general education program are first-rate. I am so pleased that AGLS is in agreement.”
– Dr. Jordan T. Kuck, Brevard College Associate Professor of History/Chair of Humanities Division/Honors Program Coordinator
“This award shines a light on Mel and the work she does for the general education curriculum at Brevard College, which provides lasting, profound, and transformative experiences necessary for every other possible avenue of education our students pursue. At a college full of dedicated and caring faculty, there is no other professor I so actively try to emulate for both her presence as a teacher and her commitment to the liberal arts as foundational to college education, and good thinking in general, as Mel. I couldn’t be more proud to call her my friend and colleague.”
– Dr. James Everett, Brevard College Assistant Professor of English