Michael Flowers had finished a job in Kansas in 1984 and returned to his alma mater, the University of Mississippi, to do summer stock theater when he was two weeks from being unemployed.

“I got a call, and in August of 1984, I interviewed for the job at Birmingham-Southern College,” he says. “I’m still here.”

And now he’s there with a top teaching honor. Flowers, professor of theater at BSC, has been named 2015 Alabama Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

“I’ve been teaching for 32 years at the college now, and you just go about your daily routine and keep trying to do the best work you can, and this happens,” Flowers says. “I was quite surprised when I got the letter saying that I won.”

Former students are not surprised.

Michael Flowers continues to be an influence on many students after graduation. (Photo by Tom Coiner/Birmngham-Southern College)

“I was in Michael’s very first class that he taught at Birmingham-Southern,” says Kristi Tingle Higginbotham, one of Birmingham’s best-known musical-theater performers. “I knew he was going to be a very important factor in my developing as an actress.”

Actor Barry Austin echoes that sentiment, calling Flowers “creative, insightful, challenging, kind and fair.”

“He’s extraordinarily talented, and I’ve learned so much from him as a student and beyond,” Austin says. “He has been a mentor and a friend, and he has been a great support to me.”

And from Dane Peterson, a BSC alumnus who has starred in Birmingham productions and started his own theater company: “My relationship with Michael began as professor/student … Over the years, it has morphed into friend and colleague,” Peterson says. “He taught me to challenge myself as an artist and to challenge my audiences.”

Testimonials like that are not few and far between when it comes to Flowers, who has seen his mission go beyond theater at BSC.

“We certainly have had students who have gone on to have professional careers in the business, but our mission is to help these students use their theater training in whatever vocation seems to be their calling,” Flowers says. “For some, it’s theater. For some it’s law, doctors, arts administrators or teachers.”

And Flowers isn’t done, yet.

“After you’ve been doing anything for this long, you continue to look for things that excite you and keep you motivated,” he says. “I feel very driven to do things at the college that help raise important questions for the entire student body.”

Recent productions at BSC have included “American Idiot,” a rock musical dealing with life post-9/11; “Carrie,” a horror tale that at its core is about bullying; and “Spring Awakening,” an award-winning musical that grapples with a number of difficult subjects dealing with teenagers.

And Flowers is sure to keep directing musicals by Stephen Sondheim. Since 1999, when BSC produced “Passion,” he has done productions of eight Sondheim shows, some of them multiple times.

“I think I’m going to do this for as long as I can manage the long hours,” says Flowers, 59, who also acts on Birmingham stages from time to time. “I hope I can do this for several more years.”