Weiss guy
John A. "Jack" Muckstadt was named a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow by the Cornell Board of Trustees.
He received this award for excellence in teaching, advising undergraduate students, exemplary efforts to improve instruction on campus, and for striving to improve daily life.
"Engineering exists to improve the lives of all, and if you view it as your own personal enterprise, you’re missing the point," says Muckstadt.
Muckstadt, the Acheson-Laibe Professor of Engineering in Cornell’s School of Operations Research and Information Engineering, joined the faculty in 1974. For more than three decades, he has brought the tools of real-life, private-sector experience to the classroom. "All coursework is about trying to teach students how to think about these problems," he said. "It’s essentially the scientific method applied in a different way: You test the hypothesis, you revise it and you take action on it, and this is an ongoing thing."
The award—$5,000 a year for five years—is named for the late Stephen H. Weiss ’57, emeritus chair of the Cornell Board of Trustees, who endowed the program. To date, 51 faculty members have been named Weiss fellows, including 15 engineering faculty members. Muckstadt was honored at a faculty recognition ceremony in May hosted by the Cornell Board of Trustees.
"The selection committee noted your love of teaching and your willingness to go ‘above and beyond’ to help students," said Cornell President David Skorton. "Your clear, logical class presentations and your use of Socratic dialogue and experiential learning to develop critical thinking skills have had an impact on generations of Cornell students."
In the nomination process, many former students recounted how Muckstadt personally placed students into internship-style experiences—with regional companies—that allowed them to analyze corporate manufacturing problems and develop solutions. Former students explained that he is famous for keeping his classes fresh by "continuously re-doing" exercises and labs—to keep up with modern demands and technology.
–Anne Ju
