WIZARDRY at WORK

JOEL SPIRA AND HIS WIFE, RUTH, HAVE ALWAYS BELIEVED IN THE IMPORTANCE OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION. THEY HAVE BEEN GIVING OUT AWARDS FOR TEACHING EXCELLENCE FOR 20 YEARS AND ARE STILL GOING STRONG TODAY.

Ask inventor and industrialist, Joel Spira, what it takes to qualify for the Ruth and Joel Spira Excellence in Teaching Award, and he doesn't hesitate. "Magic," he says. "It's an individual with a magic; some people have the gift of teaching, and that's what I want to encourage." Joel Spira, founder and chairman of Lutron Electronics, says that when he started out at Brooklyn Polytech he wanted to be an aeronautical engineer; that is, until he met a professor, the late Edgar Slack, who taught him physics. "He gave me a lifelong love for physics and also an appreciation of what a magic teacher is all about."

A 1948 physics graduate of Purdue, Spira formed Lutron Electronics in 1961 in order to market his invention of the first commercial electronic solid-state dimmer for incandescent lighting. he is currently credited with 117 U.S. patents and holds three honorary doctorates in engineering, including one from Purdue.

Spira ardently believes in recognizing the importance of American engineering education and its crucial role in the nation's and world's economic growth and health. Twenty years ago he set up the Ruth and Joel Spira Awards for Excellence in Teaching which has since gone to over a hundred teachers from a number of universities (Cornell, Georgia Tech, Lehigh, MIT, U. of Michigan, Notre Dame, Perm State, Purdue).

There's no glitzy Web site telling how the award works. Each year, Spira simply writes a letter to a dean at a university of his choice, and charges him to select an excellent teacher. "Each school is different; it may be decided by a department head, or a committee, but the cleans always have a hand in it," explains Spira.

David Trumper, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT has had the honor of winning the award twice for his development of two major courses in mechatronics for seniors and graduate students, and engineering systems dynamics for sophomores; both involve a great deal of individual work in the laboratory. "I like interacting with students," says Trumper, who emphasizes that several of his colleagues were instrumental in helping him set up and teach these courses.

"I remember as a student at MIT which courses taught me a tremendous amount; someone made that possible and enjoyable.. .they turned the subject on for me. If you can turn it on for a sophomore, given the type of students at MIT, who knows what you will see them doing five or ten years from now?"

Trumper's philosophy touches on what Joel Spira has believed for many years about teaching. "You have to know your subject; know how to portray the information so it is clear and unambiguous; make it easy to understand; and you have to make it exciting," says Spira. "You can feed the students gibberish and get them excited, but they walk out into the world and don't know what to do. So all four points are necessary."

"I'm not sure mat I won this award so much for my teaching, but that I give the students very good opportunities for them to teach themselves," says Diann Brei, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan and a 2001 Spira awarclee. Faced with large classes (80-150 people) that threatened her goal to make students feel they were getting a personalized education, Brei says she decided to "divide and conquer" by setting up teams of four that work in and out of the classroom on projects where they have to build something in the shop. Representatives from each team report back, giving Brei a class of 20-30. "The group of four still has a say, so they feel they have a voice," says Brei.

"Teaching is an all or nothing thing," continues Brei. "You either love it, or you don 't. I tell my graduate students, 'go teach a course before you graduate, that will tell you, if you like it then, you'll know.'"

Brei obviously "loves it," but her biggest constraint, she says, is balancing the research she does on some 30 projects with teaching two to three classes. "I would love to have more time on my teaching; I don't think we ever get enough time."

The balance of teaching versus engineering is a ver}' serious issue, says Spira. "I believe that professors who teach should be of equal value to people who do research. Young professors arc at the showdown at the OK coral. They come in and if they don't get tenure at a reasonable time, they get kicked out. They've got to go on to some other school, and usually that ranking is not what they had. Usually promotion and tenure is based on research."

Fortunately, there are ways to make that balance work. "I've come to grips with mentoring projects by linking my research interest areas with the student projects, says Sven Eilen, assistant professor of engineering design and electrical engineering at Pennsylvania State University and a 2002 Spira winner. Bilen has several undergraduate projects in conjunction with NASA that bring in his research interest in microgravity. To date, teams of his students have flown twice on the "vomit cornet," the KC-135a, in order to test their design for an astronaut exercise harness, and experience weightlessness.