Matthew D. Stroud, Ph.D.

Dr. Stroud was a distinguished scholar and teacher during his 39 years as professor of modern languages from 1977 to 2016. In addition to being one of the most prolific producers of academic scholarship in the department, he was also awarded the Z. T. Scott Award for Distinguished Teaching and Advising in 1999. He served as chair of the department from 1984-1988, was co-director of the Mexico, the Americas, and Spain initiative, was director of the self-instructional languages program in Arabic, Chinese, and Portuguese, and was named a Murchison Term Professor from 2011-2014. As one of the first, if not the first, fully out gay professor at Trinity, Dr. Stroud spent virtually his entire career opening one door after another, from working to eliminate discriminatory hiring and benefits policies, to the recognition of same-sex partners, to serving as mentor for the first LGBTQ student group on campus. As productive and successful as his academic and teaching pursuits were, he is equally as proud of his work to create safe spaces on campus for LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff.