HPU History Professor Receives Slane Distinguished Teaching-Service Award

HIGH POINT, N.C., May 5, 2026 – High Point University recently presented The Meredith Clark Slane Distinguished Teaching-Service Award to Dr. Frederick Schneid, the Herman and Louise Smith Professor of History in the Douglas S. Witcher School of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences. The award is named for Meredith Clark Slane, a friend to the university, and has been presented annually since 1973 to recognize excellence in teaching.

HPU Provost Daniel Erb presented the award to Schneid during a faculty meeting on April 17. Erb said Schneid has defined what it means to be a teacher in the fullest, most complete sense for more than 30 years at HPU. He is not simply someone who delivers content from the front of a classroom, but who genuinely changes the trajectory of his students’ lives, Erb said.

“It is an honor to be recognized by my colleagues for the many years of teaching and service at HPU,” Schneid said. “I find it incredibly rewarding when students understand the relevance of history to the modern day and appreciate why the past is critical to the present and informs our future.”

Schneid’s former students include Dr. Andrew Tzavaras, an assistant professor of history who now teaches alongside him. His other former students have gone on to become an associate dean at the U.S. Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College, a policy analyst in Washington D.C., a derivatives analyst at Fidelity Investments, pastors, military officers, lawyers and educators across the country and beyond.

“What they all share is a single common thread: Rick Schneid saw something in them, believed in them, pushed them and then opened doors they didn’t even know existed,” Erb said.

Ken Elston, dean of the School of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences, said there are always students in Schneid’s office no matter when he walks past the history department. Schneid’s colleagues said his office functions as a gathering place, a research library, a counseling room and a community center, all at once. One student described it simply as her “second home on campus.”

Another student, an exercise science major, enrolled in Schneid’s History of the Holocaust class last fall. After the semester ended, the student wrote Schneid a thank-you email to tell the professor that he had learned more in the Holocaust class than in any other course during his college career. The student wrote to say Schneid’s passion was infectious and that it brought “a learning monster” out of the students in his classroom. The student closed by writing: “The day you stop teaching, the world will be deprived of an incredibly talented professor.”

Schneid’s impact extends well beyond the classroom. He directed HPU’s Honors Program for a decade and chaired the Department of History for 13 years. He also served as chief faculty marshal. He founded the Gunther E. Rothenberg Seminar in Military History, bringing internationally renowned scholars to HPU students every fall. He pioneered experiential learning through semester-long study abroad programs in France and Italy, historical wargaming and immersive classroom simulations.

In 2023-2024, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point awarded Schneid the Charles Boal Ewing Chair of Military History and honored him with the U.S. Army Public Service Commendation Medal. The Rothenberg Seminar that he established is now one of the leading annual events of its kind in the United States, said Dr. Peter Wilson, considered one of the world’s most distinguished military historians as the Chichele Professor of the History of War and chair at the University of Oxford.