A retired UW Professor is receiving a lifetime award for nearly 22 years of his time put into teaching students.

According to a UW release, retired Professor Charles Dolan of the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering has been named the winner of the 2013 John P. Ellbogen Lifetime Teaching Award.

The University says the Ellbogen Lifetime award is given out to the invidividual who has had a long, promising, and established career of a faculty member whose exceeded expectations at UW.

“A goal I had set for myself was to teach the fundamentals and practice of engineering and, at the same time, instill in the students a sense of wonder of what can be accomplished, and an understanding beyond that which occurs in textbook learning,” Dolan says.

Robert Ettema, the UW College of Engineering and Applied Science Dean says “Our faculty tend to focus largely on technical skills, but Charlie truly understands that soft skills, including teamwork and communication, are every bit as important to the success of our graduates."

The release goes on to say Dolan arrived at UW in 1991 as an associate professor of structural engineering. Dolan worked his way up to UW's H.T. Person Chair of the Engineering Department in 2003. Dolan has been elected UW's Top Professor in 1995, 2003, and 2010.

The University states prior to teaching at UW, Dolan taught at the University of Cornell, Delaware, and Massachusetts.

“A teacher’s job is to open a door to new ideas,” Dolan says. “Whether the student passes through the door or passes by the door depends, to a large degree, on how much interest is generated on the other side. My goal has been to generate interest, push some to higher levels and bring along those who are lagging.”

 

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