Harvey Mudd College professors win prestigious engineering award

CLAREMONT - Three Harvey Mudd College professors have been honored with the prestigious National Academy of Engineering award.

The 2012 Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education award was given Thursday to professors Clive L. Dym, M. Mack Gilkeson and J. Richard Phillips.

"This is without question the most widely recognized and prestigious award for engineering education in the U.S.," NAE president Charles M. Vest said.

Award winners receive a gold medal and $500,000, with half going to the individual winners and half going to the institution to continue development of the recognized educational innovation, Vest said.

Lonnie Edelheit was a member of the National Academy of Engineering who chaired a subcommittee that helped select the award winners.

"They just have done an amazing job over many years to really change how engineering is taught around the world," said Edelheit, a retired senior vice president of research and development for General Electric Co. "It used to be an academic-type of education like everything else."

Edelheit said he and Gordon both felt the "old way" of teaching engineering didn't do enough to educate the next generation in engineering.

"Harvey Mudd has pioneered team teaching. People get in teams and build cars and do engineering as it's done in the real world," she said. "The teams work on problems ... besides book learning. Clive and his group really

were at the forefront of that. They gave us a list of so many leaders created out of the program. Their curriculum is spread all around the world. Everyone is starting to teach that way now."

Dym said he was not surprised by the honor.

"When I thought about what we have done here at Harvey Mudd and the models we have created that other people around the country respect and follow, I'm not surprised we won because I think we really are different and unique in some very positive ways," Dym said.

He will receive his prize with the others Feb. 21 at Union Station in Washington, D.C. during National Engineers Week.

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Source: http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_19683120?source=rss_viewed

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