Each fall HKN invites all chapters to nominate an ECE professor for the Outstanding Teaching Award. A jury selects the winner, and the award is presented during the Annual Meeting of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA).
C. Holmes MacDonald was instrumental in starting this award in 1972. Mr. MacDonald, a Bell Telephone engineer, was a long time member of the Philadelphia Alumni Chapter and a past national director of HKN. After his retirement from Bell Telephone, Mr. MacDonald, pursuing his love for teaching, became a professor at Drexel University. It was at this point that Mr. MacDonald became aware of the need to recognize and encourage young EE teachers. Shortly after Holmes' death in 1975, the award took his name - The C. Holmes MacDonald Outstanding Teaching Award.
The Award is intended to recognize the central and crucial role of college professors in training and motivating future electrical and computer engineers. The program attempts to identify and give national recognition to electrical engineering professors who have demonstrated, early in their careers, special dedication and creativity in their teaching responsibilities. Thus it is, in part, a counter-balance to the significant pressure for research and publication performance on young professors, and a re-affirmation of the basic and essential need of excellence in teaching.