MUNCIE, Ind. -- Ball State University's long-standing claim to be a "premier teaching university" has been validated with two prestigious awards going to members of the faculty.

History Professor John R. Barber and biology Professor Jon Hendrix recently were named recipients of the national teaching prizes. Barber has been given the American Historical Association Eugene Asher Distinguished Teaching Award. Hendrix will receive the Kendall/Hunt Publishers and the Society of College Science Teaching Outstanding Undergraduate Science Teaching Award in April.

"Each prize is considered among the most acclaimed in its discipline," said Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Warren Vander Hill. "This recognition is a crowning achievement for two of our finest teacher/scholars and validates our mission to be a university that provides the highest quality classroom teaching.

"These awards bring great credit to Professors Barber and Hendrix as well as their departments and the entire university," said Vander Hill.

A specialist in European history, Barber taught at Union University and Southeast Missouri State University before joining the Ball State faculty in 1969. He earned a bachelor's degree from Union and a master's and Ph.D. degree from Vanderbilt University.

Hendrix is an authority on ethics in human genetics technology and has conducted workshops for thousands of public school science teachers. He joined the biology department in 1973 after earning bachelor's and master's degrees from Indiana State University and an educational doctorate from Ball State.

Barber and Hendrix are the most recent in a line of Ball State faculty who have earned national recognition for their teaching. In 1994, Patricia Keith-Spiegel, a distinguished professor of social and behavioral science received the Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Award from the American Psychological Association. Also that year Donald Kuratko, distinguished professor of business, was named one of three national Entrepreneur Educators of the Year by the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.