College Honors Mary C. Segers, ’61 with Ad Laudem Dei Award

10/20/2006

The University of Mount Saint Vincent honored Mary C. Segers, Class of 1961, with the Ad Laudem Dei award on Tuesday, October 17, 2006. The Ad Laudem Dei award is presented to individuals whose business or professional lives are of national significance and illustrate that service is not only an activity but also an approach to the responsibilities of the work.

Dr. Segers holds a doctorate in Political Science from Columbia University.  She is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University at Newark, where she has been awarded the Charles Pine Award for Excellence in Teaching.  She has served as the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in American Studies at the University of Warsaw, Poland; a Henry Luce Fellow in Theology at the Divinity School of Harvard University; and a Ford Foundation Fellow in Women’s Studies.  Dr. Segers has authored seven books and numerous articles examining issues such as affirmative action, the relationship between church and state, the courts and the 2000 Presidential election, and government faith-based initiatives.

When presenting the award, Charles L. Flynn, Jr., President of the University of Mount Saint Vincent, commended Dr. Segers success as an educator, saying “Your students celebrate your gifts as a teacher. They find you irresistibly charismatic, sincerely unpretentious, and tirelessly inquiring. You prompt them to explore the sometimes unsettling complexity of issues and, in the finest traditions of liberal education, require them both to seek to understand positions they do not hold and to challenge assumptions imbedded in their own beliefs. You are a true teacher.”

When accepting the award Dr. Segers offered thanks and appreciation to her  friends, colleagues, husband Dr. Jerome Travers and their children Suzanne and Jean-Paul.  She also praised her fellow graduates from the Class of 1961, who she said were among the most talented and extraordinary students to attend the University of Mount Saint Vincent.