Professor Pierce receives top honour
Bermuda is the ancestral home of a University of Notre Dame Professor, Dr. Richard B. Piece II, who is deemed to be one of the leading authorities on black history.
His mother is Mrs. Erlin Waldron Gibbons of St. George's. She and other Bermudians had the distinction of being at Notre Dame to witness the latest of many honours that have been bestowed on he son. It was the Charles E. Sheddy Award for excellence in teaching, bestowed annually at a ceremony during the Arts and Letters Advisory Weekend at the university.
Dr. Pierce was cited as an accomplished teacher-scholar whose pedagogical achievements at the university have been creative and noteworthy. He specialises in African-American, Jim Crow and Civil Rights history.
The award is named for Rev. Charles E. Shedy, C.S.C, a much beloved former dean of the college of arts and letters at Notre Dame
Although Dr. Pierce was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, he and his brother Christian, who is a noted football coach in California, spent many of their young adult years growing up in Bermuda, making many friends.
He was educated at Valparaiso University, graduating with a BA in 1985. He earned his MA at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1990 and his PhD in history at Indiana University in 1996.
Since 2006, he has held the position of John Cardinal O'Hara, CSC Associate Professor of History and Chair of the Department of African Studies, University of Notre Dame.
Mrs. Erlin Waldron-Gibbons is a sister of the late Mrs. "Diddy" Waldron Smith, who was renowned for wearing her fabulous hats and as the most expressive of St. George's Cup Match fans. Erlin's husband is Horace Gibbons, a son of Bandmaster Horace Gibbons.