Dr. John C. McManus, associate professor of history and an expert in U.S. military history, has won the 2012 Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Each year, the Governor’s Award is presented to one faculty member at each institution of higher education in Missouri. This year’s recipients were honored by Gov. Jay Nixon during an April 4 luncheon at the Don Reynolds Alumni Center in Columbia, Mo.

The awards, which are not monetary, are based on effective teaching, innovating course design and delivery, effective advising, service to the university community, commitment to high standards of excellence and success in nurturing student achievement.

McManus joined the Missouri S&T faculty in 2000. Considered one of the nation’s leading experts on the history of Americans in combat, McManus has written nine books on military history. His latest work, September Hope: The American Side of a Bridge Too Far, a book about the U.S. experience in Holland during World War II’s Operation Market Garden, will be published this summer.

A member of the editorial advisory board at World War II magazine and World War II Quarterly, McManus was named the 2012 Research Fellow by the First Division Museum at Cantigny Park. In 2007, he was named to History News Network’s list of Top Young Historians in 2007 and in 2008 he received the Missouri Conference on History Book Award for Alamo in the Ardennes: The Untold Story of the American Soldiers Who Made the Defense of Bastogne Possible.