Each fall the Philadelphia Alumni Chapter invites all HKN chapters to nominate an ECE professor for the Outstanding Teaching Award. The nominee must be less than 35 years old at the time of the nomination. A jury selects the winner, and the award is presented during the Annual Meeting of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA).
- Call for Nominations (PDF)
- Nomination Form (PDF)
- Conditions (PDF)
- Jury of Award
- Past Award Recipients
This award that is today administered by the Philadelphia Alumni Chapter was started in 1972. Instrumental in starting the award was C. Holmes MacDonald. 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 engineering. 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.