SLU History Professor Named Nancy McNeir Ring Award Winner

12/02/2022

Mark Edward Ruff, Ph.D., professor of history, has been named the 2022 recipient of the Nancy McNeir Ring Award — SLU's highest honor for teaching.

The Nancy McNeir Ring Award was initially established in 1966 by SLU’s chapter of Alpha Sigma Nu, the national Jesuit honor society, to acknowledge faculty members who display special dedication to students. 

Ruff said he was tremendously honored to be recognized with the award. 

“I see teaching as an extension of Christian mission and hospitality,” he said. “We give with no expectation of anything in return. We provide solace and care for those in need academically or emotionally. And though we do this out of duty and Christian mission, it is nonetheless exceptionally rewarding when students appreciate what we do not just in the classroom but in providing formation and when we learn that we have had a positive impact on them and the paths they choose.  it is one of my greatest joys when out of the blue, I hear from former students and learn of the wonderful and meaningful things that they have done.” 

Ruff was a unanimous selection by the Alpha Sigma Nu Executive Board. The board said his nomination stood out above the rest.

“His immense desire to promote the well being of all SLU students, his proficiency as a researcher and educator, and his commitment to SLU’s Jesuit values make him our choice for the award,” the board wrote in announcing the winner. “Dr. Ruff serves students on SLU’s campus to the highest degree by cooking homemade dinners for his classes, supporting students' mental, physical, and academic health, and educating students from all academic backgrounds. His achievements as an academic and researcher speak for themselves, but his commitment to his students is truly exceptional.”

Ruff was born in Detroit and raised in western New York. That upbringing led him to develop a lifelong fondness for painfully spicy chicken wings, vast quantities of snow, and swimming in the frigid waters of the Great Lakes. He also became a fan of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. 

“I remain a diehard fan and Bills Mafia member in spite of the psychological damage incurred by defeat after defeat. Some defeats were heartbreaking, others inglorious,” he said.

Ruff majored in history at the University of Buffalo and also pursued studies in piano performance. He graduated from Buffalo in 1991 and headed to Brown University, where he earned his master's in 1992. He earned his doctorate from Brown in 1999 in modern German history and modern European history.

As a student, he also studied abroad at the United Nations in NYC, Mansfield College, Oxford, and Université Laval in Québec City. Ruff also lived in Germany for five years while conducting research. 

Ruff began his teaching career at Concordia University-Portland. In 2004, he came to SLU. 

 “It was SLU's commitment to the Jesuit mission, a commitment easily discernible from conversations with colleagues in the humanities here during the interview process, which for my wife and me was the decisive factor in choosing to come to St. Louis.”

Becoming a professor was a childhood dream for Ruff. In elementary school, he was a fan of history and an avid reader of books on World War II. A neighbor showed him that teaching could be a career. 

“One of my childhood neighbors, Dr. Thomas Morrissey, was a history professor at SUNY Fredonia,” Ruff said. “Born in Boston, he was a former Jesuit who had left the order to marry a German librarian he met while carrying out research in Munich. An outstanding and charismatic teacher, he inspired me to enter teaching.”

Throughout his academic career, Ruff has displayed an interest in Germany. He has conducted research, written numerous articles, and edited volumes on the country and its history. The interest stems from his family’s history. 

“My grandparents were native German speakers, and the diverging experiences of my family members in Germany during the Third Reich piqued my curiosity,” he said. “At the age of 21, I met an elderly German aunt from my father's side who was crippled in one leg. I learned from her cousin that she had been thrown off a moving train by an SS member who recognized her as she was attempting to visit her father in Dachau, who had been imprisoned for helping Jews escape to Switzerland. A farmer discovered her lying in a field with a mangled leg and took pity on her. On my mother's side, in contrast, I learned of an uncle who had died while fighting in the Soviet Union. As a teenager, he had been a fanatical Nazi and had even erected a Hitler shrine in his backyard. Hearing these stories helped me see that it is nearly impossible to tidily separate our moral judgments and personal experiences from the writing of history.”

Ruff credits his undergraduate adviser, the late Georg Iggers, Ph.D., with shaping his academic career.

“Iggers was a distinguished intellectual historian and Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who left at nearly the last possible moment in early 1939,” Ruff said. “He provided me with invaluable guidance about Ph.D. programs in my field and even provided me (as an undergraduate) with overnight lodging on his floor of his small second home in Göttingen, Germany.”

Ruff has earned many honors and awards throughout his career, including multiple SLU Housing and Residence Life Faculty Excellence in Teaching Awards, several grants, and multiple fellowships. 

He currently teaches the following courses:

• Reading Course in Modern European History
• Research Seminar in Modern European History
• European Religious History from the Enlightenment to the Present
• The History of Memory
• Nazi Germany
• The Cold War
• Europe, 1914-1945
• Europe since 1945
• The Origins of the Modern World from 1500: Liberalism and its Foes
• The Origins of the Modern World from 1500: The Problem of Violence

Nancy McNeir Ring Award

The Nancy McNeir Ring Award was initially established in 1966 by SLU’s chapter of Alpha Sigma Nu, the national Jesuit honor society, to acknowledge faculty members who display special dedication to students. It was awarded annually from 1966-2008 and was re-established in 2016. It remains SLU’s only University-wide teaching award.

This award was named in honor of Nancy McNeir Ring, the University’s first dean of women, because of her devotion to the welfare of students. In keeping with tradition, Alpha Sigma Nu students review nominations and select the recipient each year.

Each school/college/center may nominate up to two faculty members for this award. The award carries with it $2,500 in professional development funds and is presented on stage at the December commencement ceremony, where the recipient presents the commencement address.

Saint Louis University’s Midyear Commencement will take place at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 17, in Chaifetz Arena.