'Professor of the Year' Challenges Christians Academes to Support One Another
by Jim Brown
January 3, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A conservative, pro-life college professor and bioethicist has won a national award that some say is the equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Former Goodwin College Science Department chairman Lawrence Roberge was recently named the "2005 Connecticut Professor of the Year" by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. Roberge developed the science program at Goodwin by organizing the construction of science labs and setting up the entire curriculum for chemistry, anatomy and physiology, microbiology and human biology. The professor, a lifelong Catholic and a pro-life advocate, says he was "stunned but pleasantly surprised" to be named "Professor of the Year" for 2005 in his state.
"When I was down there in Washington, DC, to receive the award," Roberge notes, "there wasn't a lot known of many -- and to my knowledge, any -- other Christian Conservatives or Christians, period, that were receiving awards. The sad thing is that even on the Christian and the conservative side, they haven't really appreciated this."
The Goodwin College Science Department chairman emeritus points out that "not too many times in the entire year or in the decade do you get [conservative Christian] professors receiving this national award." In fact, he says worthy conservative recipients often go unnoticed or are simply ignored.
In addition to his academic accomplishments at Goodwin College, Roberge has conducted important research on the dangerous effects of abortion vaccines on women's health. Six years before the drug RU-486 hit the market, he warned the public that the abortion-causing pill would suppress a woman's immune function.
Also, following the release of his book, The Cost of Abortion (Four Winds Press, 1995), the professor says he was ostracized by colleagues, his office was trashed, and he was eventually exiled from another college community. He feels those in academia who hold traditional or conservative beliefs need to stick together in an environment that can prove hostile to their viewpoints.
As the winner of the 2005 Connecticut Professor of the Year award, Roberge challenges his fellow Christians "out there" to give their full support to "those who are really endeavoring" in their various fields, despite an atmosphere rife with hostility and viewpoint discrimination. "I know of others who were certainly well-deserving of this award, and some of them have been ostracized for their beliefs or their policies or their politics," he says.
