At our 2020 Commencement ceremonies held in early August, Dr. Amy Cottrill, Denson N. Franklin Associate Professor of Religion, was named the 2020 Outstanding Educator of the Year. Cottrill has taught at the College since 2007 and, with this honor, will serve as the 2021 Commencement speaker.

“It was a great teaching year for me, despite the challenges of the pandemic in the spring,” she says.

Over the 2019-2020 academic year, Cottrill taught first-year students and upper-class religion majors in a range of courses. These included her Explorations Seminar class, “Serpents, Siblings, and Sacrifice: The Book of Genesis,” as well as courses on the Hebrew Bible, Abrahamic religions, and Christian scriptures in literature, art, and film.

She also travelled to the University of Rostock in Rostock, Germany, to present a paper in January. The conference, titled “Between Endurance and Wholeness: Resilience Narratives in the Old Testament,” brought together an international group of Hebrew Bible scholars to discuss the text through the lens of trauma and resilience.

Cottrill’s paper, “Reading the Psalms Through the Lens of Creative Resilience,” examines how language of pain pairs closely with language of hope throughout the Psalms.

“In many ways, the biblical narrative is a story of resilience. The biblical authors are putting words to profound suffering, naming it, framing it, and also providing a way for their audience to connect the past to a vision of the future,” she explains. “Trauma and resilience theory helps us understand the ways that encounters with violence and disruption of other kinds disorients people and communities, undermines their sense of stability, and creates a crisis of interpretation.”

Cottrill and the senior religion majors meeting over Zoom.

Cottrill says she was honored to be a part of the conversation on effects of trauma on individuals and communities with European biblical scholars, who have been particularly interested in trauma theory. She also brought this conversation to the BSC community this summer in her mini-lecture on the Psalms and resilience, which can be viewed here.

In the midst of an unpredictable spring term, Cottrill was impressed by her students throughout the transition to online learning, including her senior students who missed out on a normal end to their time on the Hilltop.

“I think students realized in a new way how important the interaction in the class is to their experience, but even when that was hard to maintain, they dug in and made class happen in spite of the chaos of a global pandemic. I thought that was admirable, and it made me proud of our students,” she says.

This fall, Cottrill is on sabbatical working on her writing projects and research to bring back to the classroom.

“I know I will miss being in the classroom, but I will be ready to go in the spring term with new ideas to discuss with students.”