Richard Hill (Fr. Bolin awardee) with Edna Magpantay-Monroe (previous recipient) and Helen Whippy (provost)
Chaminade University honored assistant professor of English, Richard James Hill, Ph.D., with this year's Fr. Bolin Excellence in Scholarship Award. Associate professor and last year's recipient, Edna Magpantay-Monroe, EdD, presented Dr. Hill with an award plaque at the fall faculty retreat. Dr. Hill will also receive a grant of $1,500 and have his name added to the award plaque in the library.
Dr. Hill received his doctorate degree in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include British Romantic and Victorian fiction, Scottish fiction, 19th-century historicism, the history of the novel, literature and the visual arts in the long eighteenth century, the novel and popular culture, and colonial literature of the Pacific. Widely published, some of his more recent endeavors have dealt with Robert Louis Stevenson, an author with strong ties to the islands. A list of his selected publications can be found at https://www.chaminade.edu/faculty/richard-james-hill-phd .
Angela Mainelli Starke, BGS '86, established the award in 2004 in honor of her professor and mentor, Fr. John Bolin, SM. A teacher and mentor of novices, scholastics and seminarians, Fr. Bolin served as the head of the Office of Religious Life and provincial of the former Province of the Pacific. He also served as vicar general for the Diocese of Honolulu and was closely associated with Chaminade as a professor, vice president of academic affairs, chancellor, rector, and regent. Fr. Bolin passed away in 2008, and Ms. Starke passed away in 2016, but the impact of faculty on students through scholarship continues.