Eight faculty members from the School of Engineering at the University of Missouri-Rolla were honored for innovative teaching during a luncheon held Monday, Nov. 15.

8 UMR FACULTY MEMBERS NAMED INNOVATIVE TEACHERS BY THE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING Dr. Robert Mitchell, dean of the UMR School of Engineering, and Jerry Bayless, associate dean of the School of Engineering, presented the awards.

The School of Engineering Innovative Teaching Award is given to School of Engineering faculty members who demonstrate innovation in their classroom teaching. The award is presented based on project proposals that are reviewed by a committee of School of Engineering faculty members. This year 18 projects were submitted for review.

Dr. Timothy Philpot, assistant professor basic engineering, developed a software program called MecMovies, which provides students with animated example problems for statics and mechanics of materials courses.

Dr. Daniel Stutts, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, revised the Mechanical Engineering 243 laboratory course to include student presentations of the final lab, developed a mechanical example of self-exciting vibrations for ME 211 and developed a minilab for ME 279.

Dr. Walter Eversman, Curators’ Professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, developed the department’s capstone design course, one of the first courses of its kind on campus.

Dr. Henry Pernicka, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, developed the MR SAT team, a group of students working with NASA and industry partners to develop a pair of tethered microsatellites as an experiment in distributed space systems. The program uses teamwork and industry mentors to solve design problems.

Dr. Robert Landers, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, developed modular control laboratory systems for ME 279, 355 and 381 and developed a two-axis lathe simulator.

Dr. Daryl Beetner, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Dr. Hardy Pottinger, associate professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering, developed laboratory exercises, hardware models and hardware-software visualization tools to introduce fundamental concepts in an introductory computer engineering course.

Dr. Norman Cox, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, formed UMR’s first solar car team and developed a course in photovoltaic systems engineering.