Associate Professor of Christian Ethics Elizabeth Bounds has received the Excellence in Teaching and Pedagogy Award from the Center for Women at Emory and the Emory Alumni Association. She was presented the award during a ceremony held at Emory on March 2.
The Award for Excellence in Teaching and Pedagogy recognizes a teacher at Emory whose methods, syllabi, and course design address women’s issues and matters of feminist importance and who promotes the intellectual development of her students in ways that inspire and transform.
During the ceremony, Bounds was praised as a trailblazer for her work with incarcerated women in both Lee Arrendale State Prison and Metro State Prison, which began when she led a creative writing group at Metro in 2009. She is a co-founder of the Certificate of Theological Studies, a yearlong program of theological education for incarcerated women taught by graduate students and faculty that has evolved into a collaboration between the Atlanta Theological Association and the chaplaincy department at Arrendale State Prison.
The award citation characterizes Bounds’ leadership as “fostering collegiality, rapport, and friendship alongside excellence in prison education. Rejecting scarcity and competition in academia, she is lauded as a collaborator, ally, and inspiration for junior faculty at Emory and beyond.”
A professor in both Candler and in Emory’s Graduate Division of Religion, Bounds teaches courses pertaining to the relationship among justice, peacebuilding, religion, and conflict transformation. She examines these processes utilizing questions of restorative justice in the criminal justice system, democratic process in civil society, and other practical methods. Her primary research and work center on the moral and theological responses to conflict and violence in America’s prison industrial complex, post-conflict situations, and ordinary parish ministry.
Bounds is the author of several books, including Coming Together/Coming Apart: Religion, Modernity, and Community (Routledge, 1997) and co-editor of Welfare Policy: Feminist Critiques and Justice in the Making: Feminist Social Ethics (Pilgrim Press, 1999). She also has written a variety of articles and book chapters than have been featured in Journal of Society of Christian Ethics, Religious Studies News, and more.