by Clare Duffy |
One of the small-school charms that UP draws pride from is the personal relationships fostered between students and professors.
Last weekend, UP’s American Society of Civil Engineers chapter spent the weekend building not just community, but volunteer campgrounds at the Juniper Hills Nature Preserve in central Oregon. The group was lead by Professor Mark Kennedy.
Kennedy, associate dean of the School of Engineering and professor of civil engineering, has just passed the title of faculty adviser of ASCE to civil engineering professor, Mojtaba Takallou, after 15 years. He made the decision partly due to the time commitment required of the associate dean.
But even he says, he just can’t quite let it go.
“(Coming to UP) was a way to do what I got into this profession for, which was to teach at a school that said, ‘We’re all about teaching undergraduates,’” Kennedy said. “I still like doing things like what we did this weekend, being involved.”
Coinciding with this shift, Kennedy earned the Oregon ASCE’s Engineer of the Year Award. The award recognizes one of about 2,000 civil engineers in Oregon who has done service in the field, and has been a leader in the profession. Kennedy, the first academic to win the award in many years, earned a unanimous vote from the ASCE board, recognizing his service to students.
Kennedy’s engagement in the engineering community had humble beginnings. He said he wasn’t always certain that he would study civil engineering, and it took a harkening back to his childhood to figure it out.
“It took me my first year to kind of explore some other degrees, but what made it connect was when I found out that civil engineers were the type of engineers that dealt with water and dams,” Kennedy said. “When I was a kid, and we’d go on family vacations, I’d always tell my dad, ‘Oh, there’s a dam that we’re going to go by, could we go see that dam?’ I always liked dams.”
He followed this interest and earned a bachelor's in civil engineering at the University of Nebraska, a master's at the University of Wisconsin and a doctorate at Purdue University, always keeping in mind his desire to teach undergraduate students.
According to Kennedy’s colleagues and students, this desire to teach is alive and well after 19 years at UP. He worked as the ASCE faculty adviser for 15 of those years, helping build a bridge for students between the world of academia and the engineering profession.
“He has never said, ‘This is something I cannot do,’” Dr. Mehmet Inan, professor and chair of the civil engineering department, said. “And he is a great engineer. I think that’s one of the reasons he received this award.”
Inan said that the award is meaningful not only for Kennedy, but for the Shiley School of Engineering and the University of Portland. This is reflective of the many other things Kennedy has brought to the program, including increased engineering study abroad opportunities, volunteer and professional development opportunities like Engineers Without Borders and events like the concrete canoe contest.
“It’s rewarding to see old students at the (ASCE) meetings like the one this week, to have had them as students and now you see them in the profession, that’s what it’s all about,” Kennedy said. “It just wasn’t the classroom experience that did that, it was through advising in their clubs, helping them get connected with the profession and to be able to see them doing well in the profession makes it all worth it.”
Amanda Thompson, senior civil engineering major and ASCE secretary, echoed the impact of Kennedy’s involvement. She said that ASCE has provided her with an important perspective on the professional world.
“A lot of times we get caught up in just obtaining that grade, you get stuck in the college bubble, but ASCE is a really good way to transition from that college way of thinking to a professional way of thinking,” Thompson said.
Kennedy said he looks forward to continuing to serve students as the associate dean for the Shiley School of Engineering.
“Dr. Kennedy works very sincerely with the students, he dedicates not only his time, but his personality to them,” Inan said. “Students really like someone like him who not only cares, but also goes all the way to the end for them.”
Clare Duffy is the news editor for The Beacon. She can be reached at duffy17@up.edu or on Twitter @claresduff.
