Downing named one of best teachers on campus

MechSE's Steve Downing, an adjunct associate professor and senior lecturer, received the 2016 Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the Office of the Provost. This honor indicates his status as one of the top instructional staff on the entire campus. He also won this award at the college level – receiving one of only two College of Engineering Teaching Excellence Awards. He will be formally recognized at the Celebration of Teaching Excellence ceremony on April 26.

 

Honorees of this award include faculty, instructional staff, and teaching assistants who demonstrate sustained excellence and innovation in undergraduate teaching and contributions to undergraduate learning beyond classroom instruction.

 

Since Downing joined the department teaching faculty in 2005, he has utilized his prior industry and entrepreneurial experiences in product development, finite element analysis, computational analysis, structural analysis, and manufacturing to bring real-world examples to his classes. 

 

Among many achievements, he has made many improvements to MechSE’s design curriculum to improve the experience for both students and instructors; and has been active on the SIIP-funded faculty team working to further integrate all of the department’s design courses from freshman through senior years. As a result of his extraordinary teaching efforts, in 2014, Downing received the MechSE Alumni Two-Year Effective Teaching Award and the Five-Year Effective Teaching Award in 2015. 

 

He earned a BS in engineering mechanics in 1970, an MS in TAM in 1971, and a PhD in mechanical engineering in 1983, all from Illinois. 

 

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