Kinnier Award To Help Elzey Engage a New Generation of Engineering Teachers
— By Charlie Feigenoff
Dana Elzey, associate professor of materials science and engineering in the
School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia, was a logical choice to be the inaugural recipient of a new award named for
Henry Lee Kinnier.
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| Dana Elzey |
Kinnier was an engineering alumnus (
chemical engineering, 1942) and professor known for his kind and helpful guidance to generations of engineering students. He died in 2009.
The new award in his name represents an expansion of the
Ernest “Boots” Mead Endowment program,
which, in honor of the longtime U.Va. music professor, annually
provides faculty with modest funds to find new ways to work closely with
students outside the classroom. A new endowment honoring Kinnier
allowed engineering faculty to participate this year for the first time.
“Professor Kinnier was a much beloved faculty member in the
Engineering School, who, like Ernest Mead, was a special friend to
students for many decades,” said Tom Darbyshire, a 1982 alumnus who
heads the
Mead Endowment.
“In his honor, former students are contributing money so that an
engineering faculty member will be able to participate each year.”
Like Kinnier and Mead, Elzey is known for engaging with students, just as Thomas Jefferson intended with his design for the
Academical Village.
“Dana helps students understand the power of engineering to change the
world as well as to change the way they think about the world,” said
Engineering School Dean James H. Aylor. “He’s also a great believer that
our students learn best through doing.”
The project Elzey developed with his Kinnier Award funding
illustrates this approach. One of his goals is to give students who are
considering a career in engineering education the opportunity develop an
engineering class and teach it. He plans to recruit a small group of
interested third-year students and host a series of dinner seminars to
expose them, as he says, “to the inner workings of the teaching
profession.”
One method is to invite colleagues to talk over dinner about their
motivations for becoming professors and their experiences as faculty
members. “It’s important that students begin to see faculty as people
and to imagine living their lives,” he said.
But as is typical for Elzey, he moves beyond empathy to experience,
challenging students to develop an introduction to engineering
presentation for 11th graders. Students will be asked to approach the
challenge as they would a design project: setting goals and delivering a
program that best meets their requirements. “There are a million ways
of doing this,” Elzey said. “Their goal is to find the idea that has the
highest probability of success.”
Elzey’s Kinnier Award program serves another goal: raising the
profile of engineering among high school students who have strengths
beyond math and science. “As an engineer, you have to know your math and
science,” he said, “but you also need to be able to manage and organize
a project, place it in the larger context and communicate your
decisions clearly. I see the Kinnier Award as an occasion to make
engineering a consideration for a broader selection of students.”
http://news.virginia.edu/content/kinnear-award-help-elzey-engage-new-generation-engineering-teachers
