Dr. Daniel Watkins Wins Reid 2025 Teaching Award

Congratulations to Dr. Daniel Watkins, the 2025 winner of the Robert L. Reid Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching in the Humanities!

Thanks to an endowment from Dr. Willis A. Tacker, the prestigious Reid Teaching Award  is bestowed biennially to a worthy faculty member by the Department of History and the College of Arts and Sciences. The award honors longtime Baylor History professor and Master Teacher, Mr. Robert Reid, and recognizes one outstanding undergraduate teacher in the Department of History. History faculty are nominated by undergraduate history majors based on a variety of criteria, while finalists are asked to reflect on their accomplishments as educators. 

This year, while every one of Baylor’s History faculty received at least one nomination, it was Dr. Watkins who took the prize for his enthusiasm and dedication to teaching and mentoring Baylor History undergraduates.

Dr. Watkins received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Florida and his Ph.D. from Ohio State University. After teaching history for three years at the University of North Florida, he joined Baylor’s Department of History in 2017 and in 2022 brought the American Historical Association’s Texas Conference on Introductory History Courses to Baylor.  A scholar of religion, culture, and politics in Modern France, Dr. Watkins has published two books, Berruyer’s Bible: Public Opinion and the Politics of Enlightenment Catholicism in France in 2021 and Belief and Politics in Enlightenment France: Essays in Honor of Dale K. Van Kley in 2019.

In addition to his significant scholarly work, Dr. Watkins has made his mark in Baylor’s History Department as a devoted, entertaining, and engaging teacher. Whether he’s breaking out his guitar in class to teach a mnemonic for analyzing historical scholarship or inviting his students to his home for a post-semester family dinner, Dr. Watkins is a favorite among undergraduates, many of whom return to class with him semester after semester.

“If I were ever a teacher, I would want to teach like Dr. Watkins,” says former student and History major Maura Okula. “You feel smarter in his class because he has a kind of Socratic method where he asks questions and you answer, like a dialogue, instead of just lecturing. He encourages you to be a great historian and a great person, and he is genuinely interested in the academic and personal lives of his students."

Bravo Dr. Watkins and thank you for your dedication and creativity!