UA Honors College Dean Robert W. Halli Jr. (right) received the 2005 Eugene Current-Garcia Award as Alabama’s Distinguished Literary Scholar. Halli’s former teaching assistant Andrew Hudgins (left) was also honored with the Harper Lee Award for creative writing. Download a high-resolution version

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Dr. Robert W. Halli Jr., dean of The University of Alabama Honors College, has received the Eugene Current-Garcia Award as Alabama’s Distinguished Literary Scholar for 2005.

Halli was selected by the Association of College English Teachers of Alabama, a diverse organization representing faculty at all of Alabama’s two-year, four-year and doctoral institutions. The award was presented to him at the Alabama Literary Symposium held recently in Monroeville.

Halli holds a bachelor’s degree from Boston College, and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Virginia. He has been a member of the UA English department faculty since 1972, where he has taught and written about English Renaissance literature, ballads and folksongs, the detective novel, and the macabre. His authoritative edition of this state’s folksongs, “An Alabama Songbook,” was published by the UA Press last fall.

Halli has been honored for excellence in teaching and service-leadership by numerous on- and off-campus organizations. Among his honors, he received the Morris L. Mayer Award in 2000. He has served as the president of the Southeastern Renaissance Conference, the UA Faculty Senate, the Association of College English Teachers of Alabama, and Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society.

Recipients of the Eugene Current-Garcia Award must be native Alabamians or authors who have developed their writing career in Alabama. They also must have distinguished themselves as writers, specifically in scholarly reflection and writing on literary topics.

The award is named after Dr. Eugene Current-Garcia who published six books and dozens of articles and reviews on the short story genre and on American literature, particularly Old Southwest humor.

Halli’s former teaching assistant Andrew Hudgins also was honored at the symposium with the Harper Lee Award, which is given to the top creative writer of the year. Hudgins, who graduated from UA with a master’s degree, is now on the faculty of Ohio State.

The symposium, sponsored by Alabama Southern Community College, honors the recipients with a $5,000 cash prize as well as a sculpture by Frank Fleming of the clock-bearing dome of the Monroe County courthouse, a reference to Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird.”