Dr. Glenn Olsen is the recipient of the Madeleine Festival award

Friday, Apr. 15, 2016

SALT LAKE CITY — Dr. Glenn Olsen, emeritus professor of medieval history at the University of Utah, will be honored with the Madeleine Arts and Humanities award at the dinner April 28 at the Alta Club.

Olsen was appreciative and somewhat surprised when he heard the news, he said. 

Olsen holds a Ph.D. in the history of the Middle Ages; he has been published widely in academic journals. He also is the author of a number of books, including Beginning at Jerusalem: Five Reflections on the History of the Church and Christian Marriage: A Historical Study.

Olsen said his latest book “is my best” book, Patterns in History and Culture; it will come out in the fall. He and his wife, Suzanne, worked on the last chapter together; he wrote the text and she took the “color photos of the town Lecce in the southeast corner of Italy, where we spent some time. I mostly use black-and-white prints,” he said.

“One glance at the contents of Professor Olsen’s extensive academic curriculum vitae is enough to qualify him as one of the most distinguished and prolific historians of his generation, particularly in the field of medieval studies,” said Mauricio Mixco, professor emeritus, Department of Linguistics, University of Utah, who nominated Olsen for the Madeleine award. “He has won innumerable awards and earned many marks of professional distinction, along with the obvious esteem of his academic peers, locally, nationally and internationally.” 

The list of Olsen’s accolades in the 20th century is too lengthy to reiterate, Mixco said, but he noted that Olsen was awarded The Pius XI Award in 2002, and in 2004 he was listed by Cambridge among the Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century. 

Olsen also has been a member of a variety of academic and civic committees, panels and boards, and often “held significant leadership roles,” Mixco said. 

Olsen spent time in Rome as a Fulbright scholar from 1963-1965; during this time, he converted from his childhood faith of Baptist and Lutheran influences to Catholicism. 

Olsen was drawn to studying the Middle Ages through undergraduate professors who influenced him, he said. “The Middle Ages was a particularly interesting period, one that my own religious tradition jumped over; I was still a Protestant. I was really ignorant of something that was very interesting; I think that had a considerable role to play in how things developed in graduate school and beyond.” 

Olsen was in Rome during the second and third years of the Second Vatican Council, and would listen to the end of the day wrap-up interviews the advisor for the council would give for NBC News, he said. That and his studying of theology led him to the Catholic Church. 

Throughout the years Olsen’s writings have been related to the fact that he is a Church historian and “in some ways my writings are a way for me to pursue my study of theology,” he said. “I have been an editor for a number of journals for more than 30 years.”

Olsen also enjoyed teaching at the University of Utah, he said. “There are many personalities and I am the hammy kind; I’m a pretty good lecturer, too. It was Church history, and the majority of my students were Mormons and they generally were interested in what I was talking about. They seemed to like me and I was the type of person they could ask the questions that had been on their minds. I found teaching a lot of fun because they seemed to be willing to let their guard down and listen to what I had to say.”

WHAT: Madeleine Award Dinner honoring Dr. Glenn Olsen

WHEN:  Thursday, April 28, beginning with a social hour at 6 p.m. 

WHERE: Alta Club, 100 E. South Temple, SLC

Reservations required; RSVP to pwesson@utcotm.org, or 801.328.8941 x 108.