The College of Arts & Letters honored its Faculty Award Winners at the 2025 College of Arts & Letters Faculty and Staff Welcome Reception on Sept. 29 at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center.
The 2025 Faculty Award Winners are:
- Chris Frilingos – Paul Varg Award
- Divya Victor – Faculty Leadership Award
- Morgan Shipley – Faculty Award for Innovation and Leadership
- Jon Keune – Community Partner Award
- Ellie Mitchell – Fixed-Term Faculty/Academic Specialist Leadership Excellence Award
- Rocio Quispe Agnoli – Legacy Lecture Award
These faculty members were recognized for their outstanding leadership, teaching, innovation, and community engagement, as well as the significant impact they have made in enhancing curriculum and student experiences.
Paul Varg Award
Chris Frilingos, Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, is this year’s recipient of the Paul Varg Award, which recognizes College of Arts & Letters faculty who challenge students intellectually; maintain a national reputation in their field; and provide service to the college, university, and community while being a consummate professional. The award is named in honor of Paul Varg, the first dean of the college, who was a respected teacher, researcher, and administrator.
Frilingos was nominated for this award by the Department of Religious Studies Awards Committee, which consists of Laura Yares, Elan Pochedley, and Morgan Shipley. They wrote that: “Dr. Chris Frilingos has modeled success in all areas of his professional life. His teaching, scholarship, and service are exemplary, making significant contributions to the vitality of the Department of Religious Studies and the health of the College of Arts & Letters and beyond…Given his exceptional record of teaching, student mentorship, research, scholarly reputation, and his outstanding service and outreach, Dr. Frilingos is an obvious choice for this honor.”
“Dr. Chris Frilingos has modeled success in all areas of his professional life. His teaching, scholarship, and service are exemplary, making significant contributions to the vitality of the Department of Religious Studies and the health of the College of Arts & Letters and beyond.”
Drs. Laura Yares, Elan Pochedley, and Morgan Shipley
The nomination letter also included positive responses from students with one student writing that “Professor Frilingos’s enthusiasm for the material and careful handling of the complex subject matter is masterful.” Another wrote that he “makes the classroom and beyond safe places for learning. He creates engaging and thought-provoking material and assignments and his level of comprehension on the course subject makes learning seamless and fascinating.”
Frilingos has been a core faculty member in MSU’s Department of Religious Studies for 22 years. He writes and teaches about biblical literature and early Christianity. He wrote the books Jesus, Mary, and Joseph: Family Trouble in the Infancy Gospels and Spectacles of Empire: Monsters, Martyrs, and the Book of Revelation.
Faculty Leadership Award
Divya Victor, Associate Professor in the Department of English, is this year’s recipient of the Faculty Leadership Award, which rewards College of Arts & Letters faculty who demonstrate outstanding leadership — the kind who go beyond the performance of routine tasks, are generous in sharing insights, and provide the hard work and mentoring that creates vision and excellence in programs and departments.
Justus Nieland, Professor and Chair of the Department of English, nominated Victor for this award. He wrote that “Dr. Victor is a visionary leader, and her work links creative practice, pedagogical innovation, curatorial savvy, and administrative professionalism with unusual dexterity.”
Victor’s nomination was supported by Toby Altman, Assistant Professor and Director of the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (RCAH) Center for Poetry. He wrote that “In her role as Director of Creative Writing, Professor Victor excels in the public aspects of leadership — curating a vibrant and inclusive community of writers on campus. But she is able to excel in this public facing capacity because of the diligent and slow work she has done behind the scenes over many years, building partnerships, mastering university finance. This work has created one of the most active and engaged Creative Writing programs I have encountered in my career — it is a wonder, and well worth celebrating.”
“Dr. Victor is a visionary leader, and her work links creative practice, pedagogical innovation, curatorial savvy, and administrative professionalism with unusual dexterity.”
Dr. Justus Nieland
Victor’s writing, editing, and research focuses on 20th and 21st centuries, and emergent poetry and poetics, with an emphasis on innovative and experimental forms and poets who undertake representations of trauma, both systemic and intersubjective. She is the author of CURB, winner of the 2022 PEN America Open Book Award and the 2022 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award as well as a finalist for the CLMP Firecracker Award, and several other books and chapbooks. Her fifth book, KIN, a collection of essays, is due out from Graywolf in 2027. She is the recipient of a 2025 Creative Capital Award for this work.
Victor is also a recipient of MSU’s Teacher-Scholar Award and was MSU’s sole nominee for the Michigan Association of State Universities Distinguished Professor of the Year Award in both 2024 and 2025.
Faculty Award for Innovation and Leadership
Morgan Shipley, Associate Professor and Foglio Endowed Chair in Spirituality in the Department of Religious Studies, is this year’s recipient of the Faculty Award for Innovation and Leadership, which recognizes a College of Arts & Letters faculty member who utilizes innovative practices in the classroom, finds engaging ways to integrate scholarship and teaching, and provides rich opportunities for experiential learning beyond the classroom setting.
Shipley was nominated for this award by Amy DeRogatis, Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies, who wrote that “Professor Shipley creates learning opportunities that bring students outside of the classroom and uses innovative techniques and technologies inside the classroom that invite students to learn through experiences and forge connections between knowledge acquisition and application in communities and the public sphere. He thoroughly integrates his scholarship and values with his teaching and always provides rich experiential learning experiences for his students.”
“Innovation exists at the heart of Professor Shipley’s pedagogy. He seeks to instill a life-long love of learning and growing, recognizing that a humanities education uniquely impacts the way we come to understand self and other.”
Dr. Amy DeRogatis
DeRogatis also noted that “Innovation exists at the heart of Professor Shipley’s pedagogy. He seeks to instill a life-long love of learning and growing, recognizing that a humanities education uniquely impacts the way we come to understand self and other. In every course he teaches, his own research on spirituality and spiritual practices is woven into the assignments and activities.”
Shipley’s research and teaching focus on mystical and esoteric new religions, the rise of spiritual but not religious identities, and the nature and expressions of secular spirituality. He is the author of Psychedelic Mysticism: Transforming Consciousness, Religious Experiences, and Voluntary Peasants in Postwar America. Through his pedagogy, Shipley emphasizes values-based, human-centered education, encouraging students to cultivate empathy, responsibility, and compassion as they explore the role of spirituality in shaping meaningful lives.
Community Partner Award
Jon Keune, Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, is this year’s recipient of the Community Partner Award, which recognizes a faculty member’s community contributions at the local, state, national, and/or global levels. It recognizes participation, student mentorship, and overall leadership, as well as significant involvement, as reflected in one or more community engagement activities.
Keune was nominated for this award by Amy DeRogatis, Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies, who wrote that “Dr. Keune has created a model of community-partnered mentorship and scholarship that is both globally relevant and locally rooted. His work not only brings academic insight to the public but also brings public voices into academic awareness, contributing to a more inclusive understanding of Buddhism, migration, and postcolonial identity.”
DeRogatis also wrote that “Dr. Keune’s work exemplifies the mission of the college to “enrich community, economic, and family life” through meaningful partnerships, collaborative knowledge production, and inclusive mentorship. His work is not only deeply scholarly but also transformational in the communities he engages. His dedication to community engagement, mentorship, leadership, and cross-cultural bridge-building reflects the highest ideals of our college.”
“Dr. Keune has created a model of community-partnered mentorship and scholarship that is both globally relevant and locally rooted. His work not only brings academic insight to the public but also brings public voices into academic awareness.”
Dr. Amy DeRogatis
Keune is a scholar of religion, social history, and transregionalism. His current research examines the legacies of B.R. Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism in 1956 and how Ambedkarite communities in India and abroad engage religion, spirituality, and identity in migratory contexts. He is the author of Shared Devotion, Shared Food: Equality and the Bhakti-Caste Question in Western India (Oxford, 2021). He co-founded the Regional Bhakti Scholars Network and the Bhakti Virtual Archive (BHAVA), two collaborative initiatives that support scholars working across Indian languages and regions. His work has been supported by multiple Fulbright fellowships and international research appointments in India, Taiwan, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Fixed-Term Faculty/Academic Specialist Leadership Excellence Award
Ellie Mitchell, Instructor in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures, is this year’s recipient of the Fixed-Term Faculty/Academic Specialist Leadership Excellence Award, which recognizes fixed-term faculty and academic specialists who demonstrate leadership excellence, making a substantive impact in their college unit. Award winners foster excellence, encourage others on their own path to intellectual leadership, and enhance diversity across the college.
Kristin L. Arola, Gillmor Endowed Professor of Professional and Public Writing and the Director of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program, nominated Mitchell for the award and wrote that “Ellie has been an invaluable member of our community, offering creative Indigenous-centered leadership and promoting productive relationships across American Indian and Indigenous Studies, College of Arts & Letters, and Indigenous communities across Michigan. Our program, college, and students are better for having worked with her, and she is well-deserving of this award.”
“Ellie has been an invaluable member of our community, offering creative Indigenous-centered leadership and promoting productive relationships across American Indian and Indigenous Studies, College of Arts & Letters, and Indigenous communities across Michigan.”
Dr. Kristin L. Arola
Supporting the nomination was Sonja Fritzsche, Professor of German Studies and Senior Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Administration, who wrote that “Ellie has demonstrated true intellectual leadership through her tremendous creativity, tenacity, resilience, and good cheer in the face of often overwhelming circumstances. She has taught me so much and working with her has been one of the greatest privileges of my career.”
A member of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, Mitchell served as the Indigenous Community Outreach Liaison for the Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL) and Indigenous Languages Partnership, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and housed in the Center for Language Teaching Advancement (CeLTA). She is the founder of Bead & Powwow Supply, which promotes Indigenous arts, crafts, and fashions. She spent several years traveling the powwow trail, selling Indigenous art and craft supplies throughout the United States.
Legacy Lecture Award
Rocio Quispe Agnoli, Professor in the Department of Romance and Classical Studies, is this year’s Legacy Lecture Award recipient. Established in 2021 by the College of Arts & Letters Culture of Care Retirement Subcommittee, the Legacy Lecture Award recognizes one faculty member each year for their contributions to the College of Arts & Letters, Michigan State University, and the community. Honorees deliver a 60-minute lecture they have always wanted to give, focusing on their creative work and research.
Anthony Grubbs, Chair of the Department of Romance and Classical Studies, nominated Quispe Agnoli for this award. He wrote that “One of the areas in which Professor Quispe Agnoli’s intellectual leadership prominently stands is her remarkable and natural ability to forge meaningful and richly dynamic scholarly connections that cut across language, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries to initiate and lead transformational conversations about wide-ranging, timely, and relevant humanities topics in language pedagogy, cultural and literary studies, visual and media studies, and beyond.”
Grubbs’ nomination letter included a comment from a student who wrote that Quispe Agnoli “has been a supportive mentor and exceptionally hard-working advisor and has guided me through the whole process of writing and defending the dissertation, navigating the difficult waters of being a woman of color and an international student in academia…Having her as an advisor and mentor has been one of the most gratifying experiences of my professional life.”
“One of the areas in which Professor Quispe Agnoli’s intellectual leadership prominently stands is her remarkable and natural ability to forge meaningful and richly dynamic scholarly connections that cut across language, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries.”
Dr. Anthony Grubbs
Quispe Agnoli’s research examines Indigenous writers of Latin America, intersectionality, gender and sexualities, visual-textual interactions, science fiction, and decolonial thought. She is the author of La fe andina en la escritura (2006); Nobles de papel (2016), which received the 2017 LASA-Peru Flora Tristán Book Award; editor of Women’s Negotiations and Textual Agency in Latin America (1500-1799) (2017); Latin American Literatures in Transition, pre-1492-1800 (2022); and Qhipa Pacha. Futurismo peruano/Peruvian Futurism (2024); and guest editor of four special issues of scholarly journals. Between 2020-2024, she served as Editor-in-Chief of Revista de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades.
In 2022, Quispe Agnoli was named an MSU William J. Beal Outstanding Professor, and since 2022, she has served in Harvard University’s Quechua Initiative on Global Indigeneity. She plans to retire from MSU in May 2026.
By Austin Curtis and Kim Popiolek
