Students and Teachers Honored at Convocation

Electrical and computer engineering senior Jason Morse was named top senior by the Engineering Alumni Association (EAA) and honored with Engineering's most prestigious Wingerter Award at the Wayne State University College Engineering's annual Honors Convocation April 1 at McGregor Memorial Conference Center.

"Jason balanced excellence in scholarship with a high degree of leadership in Tau Beta Pi (the Engineering honor society) and community involvement," said Brian Geraghty (MSME72), EAA president, in presenting the awards in his role as 'dean for the day.'

Four Wingerter Awards are typically granted to graduating seniors demonstrating exceptional qualities of character, scholarship and leadership determined by a College-wide student/faculty selection committee. Jason Harris (civil and environmental engineering), Matthew Hermann (electrical and computer engineering), and Nihir Patel (mechanical engineering), were the other 2005 Wingerter Award winners.

The Honors Convocation, presented by the Engineering Student Faculty Board, is an opportunity for the College to not only to recognize the achievement of students, but also its teachers. Winners of the Excellence in Teaching Awards went to Thomas Heidtke, professor, civil and environmental engineering, and Mukasa Ssemakula, professor, Engineering Technology. The award honors faculty whose excellence in academia is reflected in their teaching and in their unique contributions to education. This is the second time in nine years Heidtke received this honor.

Sixty-four scholarship donors and student recipients were recognized at the ceremony attended by parents, students and college officials. Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (Hamtramck-Highland Park) participated in the presentation of the Tanji Westley Willoughby Memorial Scholarship, a new scholarship to African American students. The scholarship is named after a young engineer from Detroit whose death last year motivated his mother, Barbra Herard, to garner community support for the scholarship. A demand for students qualified in math and science to fill America's need for trained engineers makes the creation of the Willoughby Scholarship so significant, Conyers said. Students David Low and Tina Redd are the scholarship's first recipients.

Debora Marth, MSBME96/PHDBME02, a vehicle crash safety engineer with the Ford Motor Company, addressed the convocation to share her experience in the workplace. "At the University, all of your time and energy is spent devoted to achieving the best possible outcome for yourself," she said. "In the workplace, you interact with your co-workers as a team, striving to achieve the same goals; namely, the success of the business venture. People skills become more important."

Marth listed what she has found to be most important qualities for success in school and at work. They include: 1) commitment to be your best; 2) ability to recognize your deficiencies and willingness to work extra hard to overcome them; 3) setting your goals high and never giving up in trying to achieve them. "Successful people in the workplace seem to always exhibit a high degree of versatility and flexibility," she said. "The ability to change focus quickly as things evolve both improves your performance and helps to maintain your sanity when the going gets tough."