West To Receive Alumni Teaching Fellow Award

3-28-96
University Park, Pa. -- Harry H. West, professor of civil engineering at Penn State's University Park Campus, will receive Penn State's Alumni Teaching Fellow Award this year.

A Penn State graduate, West has taught structural analysis and design at Penn State for more than 30 years, has won several other teaching awards, and has done award-winning research on suspension bridges. He is currently in charge of an exchange program between his department and the University of Leeds, England.

The award will be presented at the Faculty/Staff Awards ceremony on Sunday, March 31, at the Nittany Lion Inn.

Established in 1985 to honor distinguished teaching and to encourage teaching excellence, the award was first presented in 1986 by the Alumni Association, the Undergraduate Student Government and the Graduate Student Government.

West, said a colleague, "is perhaps the most highly regarded and respected senior faculty member in the department of civil and environmental engineering. While he has won both teaching and research awards outside the University I firmly believe he is most proud of his teaching awards within the University community."

Another colleague said that West "prepares every lecture with meticulous care and attention to detail. He sets high standards and the students respond. Anyone who receives an A in his class has earned it." West "always treats students with respect and is attentive to their problems, whether academic or personal. Students clearly find him approachable."

One of West's students said that he is "one of the most knowledgeable professors I have ever had. Anytime a student asks a question, Dr. West provides a quick example to illustrate the area of difficulty. He encourages students to think and question whether or not answers 'make sense.' Problems are always related to real-world applications to keep students interested and enthused about learning."

West himself said that one of the most important attributes of an effective teacher "is the ability to convey a genuine sense of excitement about the subject matter" and transfer it to the students. "Thorough preparation in all aspects of the instructional process is vital," he said. "Students should not be frustrated because an instructor has not given adequate attention to the development of the course."

West has taught continuously at Penn State since 1958, except for a five-year period he spent in the U.S. Air Force and at the University of Illinois as a graduate student.

He has been honored several times for his teaching, winning the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for distinguished undergraduate teaching in 1990, the Penn State Engineering Society's Premier Teaching Award in 1986 and Excellent Teaching Award in 1975, and the Western Electric Fund Award of the American Society for Engineering Education for Excellence, for the instruction of engineering students, in 1977. Also, in 1993, West received the Lawrence J. Perez Memorial Student Advocate Award from the College of Engineering.

In recent years West has taught undergraduate courses in structural analysis and graduate courses in structural dynamics and energy methods applied to structural analysis. He has written two undergraduate textbooks -- "Analysis of Structures: An Integration of Classical and Modern Methods" and "Fundamentals of Structural Analysis" -- which are used at many colleges and universities.

In 1970, for his research on suspension bridges, he was the co-recipient of the American Society of Civil Engineers' Moissieff Award. Over the years, his research has dealt with static and dynamic analysis of suspension bridges and other cable-supported bridge and roof structures, temperature effects in multi-story steel frames and prestressed concrete box girders, overload and failure analysis of prestressed concrete segmental box girder bridges, bridge design life, and the consequences of overloads on prestressed concrete highway bridges.

He has a 1958 B.S. degree and a 1961 M.S. degree in civil engineering, both earned at Penn State, along with a 1967 Ph.D. degree in civil engineering from the University of Illinois.

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