Featured Faculty: Rev. John J. Coughlin, O.F.M.
Distinguished Professor of the Year
On Friday, May 8, Notre Dame Law School students honored Rev. John J. Coughlin, O.F.M. with the 2009 Distinguished Professor of the Year Award and McLean Faculty/Staff Award. Outgoing Student Bar Association Vice President Sean Lyttle offered this tribute at the awards ceremony:
“As voted upon by this year’s graduating class, Father Coughlin won both awards quite handily. Ordinarily, the Distinguished Professor of the Year gives an address to the class at the law school diploma ceremony, but Fr. Coughlin’s obligations in Rome and elsewhere prevent him from being able to share the commencement exercises with us. Lucky for us, he is here today, giving us this wonderful opportunity to honor him and enjoy his company.
“Fr. Coughlin joined the faculty here at Notre Dame in 2003, so when our class arrived in the fall of 2006, his was still a fairly ‘new’ face in the halls of Notre Dame Law School. Fr. Coughlin came to us from St. John’s Law, where the graduating class named him ‘Professor of the Year’ in his very first year as a member of the full-time faculty. Here at Notre Dame, we made him wait five years to receive the same honor. I guess we have always been a little slower than St. John’s at recognizing greatness in our midst, perhaps because we are so accustomed to it. To make up for the delay, we are giving him not one but two awards today.
“For the Class of 2009, the ‘mystique’ of Fr. Coughlin began well before we arrived on campus. When we received our ‘Insider’s Guide’ to Notre Dame Law School in the summer of 2006, Fr. Coughlin was described as the professor with the highest number of initials behind his name, so we knew even before we got here that this guy was smart.
“Then, in the spring of 2007, we all fondly remember taking Fr. Coughlin’s Ethics class, and our enjoyment of the ‘pass/fail’ grading system. We remember spending two classes watching ‘A Man for All Seasons,’ unaware at the time that we would be the last class to see that film while its star Paul Scofield was still alive. Thinking about it this afternoon, it occurred to me that Fr. Coughlin is the only member of the faculty who can say that he taught every member of our class, a truly remarkable thing to be able to say.
“My research of the two awards we are presenting to Fr. Coughlin today revealed some interesting statistics. Only once in the history of these awards has the same person been awarded both awards in the same year, and never before has either award been bestowed upon a member of the faculty who was not in residence here at the Indiana campus during the graduating class’s final semester. It becomes clear, then, that while, for the members of our class, Fr. Coughlin has been ‘out of sight’ for our class this year, he most certainly has not been ‘out of mind.’ These awards are a testament to the impact Fr. Coughlin made upon our academic and personal lives, and we offer him our hearty and well-deserved congratulations.”
For more on Father Coughlin, including his scholarship and areas of expertise, visit Fr. Coughlin’s faculty profile page.
